For which the Nobel Prize was awarded to Bunin. A number of interesting entertaining facts about the beginning of Bunin’s creative career

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Biography

Ivan Bunin was born on October 10 (22), 1870 in Voronezh, where he lived the first three years of his life. IN further family moved to the Ozerki estate near Yelets, (Oryol province, now Lipetsk region). 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 open air"(1898), "Leaf Fall" (1901; Pushkin Prize).

1895 - I personally met Chekhov, before that we 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 didn't last long 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)
The 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 “ Damn days"(1918, published 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 the story (“Mitya’s Love”, 1925; collection of stories “Dark Alleys”, 1943), as well as in other works, wonderful examples of Russian short prose.
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 that 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 and experienced the period of Bolshevik rule there. Welcomes the capture of the city by the Volunteer Army in August 1919, personally thanks General A.I. Denikin, who arrived in the city on October 7, actively cooperates with OSVAG (propaganda and information body) under V.S.Yu.R.. In February 1920, during the approach Bolsheviks leave 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.”

In 1933 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

He spent the Second World War in a rented villa in Grasse.

He was extensively and fruitfully engaged in literary activities, becoming one of the main figures of the Russian Abroad.

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.” 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 with the beginning of perestroika.

Perpetuation of the name

In the city of Moscow there is a street called Buninskaya Alley, next to the metro station of the same name. Also on Povarskaya Street, not far from the house where the writer lived, there is a monument to him.
In the city of Lipetsk there is Bunin Street. In addition, streets with the same name are located in Yelets and Odessa.

In Voronezh there is a monument to Bunin in the city center. There is a memorial plaque installed on the house where the writer was born.
There are Bunin museums in Orel and Yelets.
In Efremov there is a house-museum of Bunin, in which he lived in 1909-1910.

Biography

Russian writer: prose writer, poet, publicist. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 22 (Old Style - October 10) 1870 in Voronezh, in the family of an impoverished nobleman who belonged to an old noble family. The "Armorial Book of Noble Families" says that there are several ancient noble families of the Bunins, descended, according to legend, from Simeon Bunikevsky (Bunkovsky), who had noble birth and left Poland in the 15th century to Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich. His great-grandson, Alexander Lavrentyev's son Bunin, served in Vladimir and was killed in 1552 during the capture of Kazan. The Bunin family included the poetess Anna Petrovna Bunina (1775-1828), the poet V.A. Zhukovsky (illegitimate son of A.I. Bunin). Ivan Bunin's father is Alexey Nikolaevich Bunin, his mother is Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Bunina, nee Chubarova. There were nine children in the Bunin family, but five died; older brothers - Yuliy and Evgeniy, younger sister- Maria. The noble family of the Chubarovs also had ancient roots. Lyudmila Alexandrovna’s grandfather and father had family estates in Oryol and Trubchevsky districts. Ivan Bunin's great-grandfather on his father's side was also rich, his grandfather owned small plots of land in the Oryol, Tambov and Voronezh provinces, but his father was so wasteful that he went completely broke, which was facilitated by the Crimean campaign and the Bunin family's move to Voronezh in 1870.

The first three years of Ivan Bunin’s life were spent in Voronezh, then his father, who had a weakness for clubs, cards and wine (he became addicted to wine during the Crimean campaign), was forced to move with his family to his estate - to the Butyrki farm in the Yeletsky district of the Oryol province. Alexei Nikolaevich’s lifestyle led to the fact that not only his own fortune was squandered or given away, but also what belonged to his wife. Ivan Bunin's father was an unusually strong, healthy, cheerful, decisive, generous, quick-tempered, but easy-going man. Alexey Nikolaevich did not like to study, which is why he studied at the Oryol gymnasium for a short time, but he loved to read, reading everything that came to hand. Ivan Bunin's mother was kind, gentle, but with a strong character.

Ivan Bunin received his first education from his home tutor - the son of the leader of the nobility, who once studied at the Lazarevsky Institute of Oriental Languages, taught in several cities, but then broke all family ties and turned into a wanderer around villages and estates. Ivan Bunin's teacher spoke three languages, played the violin, painted with watercolors, and wrote poetry; He taught his pupil Ivan to read from Homer's Odyssey. Bunin wrote his first poem at the age of eight. In 1881 he entered the gymnasium in Yelets, but studied there for only five years, since education youngest son the family had no funds. Further education took place at home: Ivan Bunin was helped to fully master the curriculum of the gymnasium and then the university by his older brother Yuli, who by that time had graduated from the university, spent a year in prison for political reasons and was sent home for three years. In his adolescence, Bunin’s work was of an imitative nature: “most of all he imitated M. Lermontov, partly A. Pushkin, whom he tried to imitate even in his handwriting” (I.A. Bunin “Autobiographical Note”). In May 1887, the work of Ivan Bunin first appeared in print - the St. Petersburg weekly magazine Rodina published one of his poems. In September 1888, his poems appeared in Books of the Week, where the works of L.N. Tolstoy, Shchedrin, Polonsky.

Independent life began in the spring of 1889: Ivan Bunin, following his brother Yuli, moved to Kharkov. Soon he visited Crimea, and in the fall he began working at Orlovsky Vestnik. In 1891, Ivan Bunin’s student book “Poems. 1887-1891” was published as a supplement to the newspaper “Orlovsky Vestnik”. At the same time, Ivan Bunin met Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, who worked as a proofreader for the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper. In 1891 she married Bunin, but since Varvara Vladimirovna’s parents were against this marriage, the couple lived unmarried. In 1892 they moved to Poltava, where brother Julius was in charge of the statistical bureau of the provincial zemstvo. Ivan Bunin entered the service as a librarian of the zemstvo government, and then as a statistician in the provincial government. During his life in Poltava, Ivan Bunin met L.N. Tolstoy. IN different time Bunin worked as a proofreader, statistician, librarian, and newspaper reporter. In April 1894, Bunin's first prose work appeared in print - the story "Village Sketch" (the title was chosen by the publishing house) was published in "Russian Wealth".

In January 1895, after his wife’s betrayal, Ivan Bunin left his service and moved first to St. Petersburg and then to Moscow. In 1898 (some sources indicate 1896) Bunin 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. In Moscow, the young writer met many famous artists and writers: with Balmont, in December 1895 - with A.P. Chekhov, at the end of 1895 - beginning of 1896 - with V.Ya. Bryusov. After meeting D. Teleshov, Bunin became a member of the Sreda literary circle. In the spring of 1899, in Yalta, he met M. Gorky, who later invited Bunin to collaborate with the Znanie publishing house. Later, in his Memoirs, Bunin wrote: “The beginning of that strange friendship that connected us with Gorky - strange because for almost two decades we considered him great friends, but in reality they were not - this began in 1899. And the end - by 1917. Then it happened that a person with whom I had not had a single personal reason for enmity for twenty years suddenly turned out to be an enemy for me, who for a long time aroused horror and indignation in me." In the spring of 1900, in the Crimea, Bunin met with S.V. Rachmaninov and the actors of the Art Theater, whose troupe toured in Yalta. Literary fame came to Ivan Bunin in 1900 after the publication of the story “Antonov Apples.” In 1901, the Symbolist publishing house “Scorpion” published a collection of Bunin’s poems “Falling Leaves” For this collection and for the translation of the poem by the American romantic poet G. Longfellow "The Song of Hiawatha" (1898, some sources indicate 1896) the Russian Academy of Sciences awarded Ivan Alekseevich Bunin the Pushkin Prize. In 1902, the first volume was published by the publishing house "Znanie" works by IA Bunin.In 1905, Bunin, who lived in the National Hotel, witnessed the December armed uprising.

In 1906, Bunin met in Moscow Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva (1881-1961), who became his wife in 1907 and faithful companion until the end of his life. Later V.N. Muromtseva, gifted with literary abilities, wrote a series of memoirs about her husband (“The Life of Bunin” and “Conversations with Memory”). In 1907, the young couple went on a trip to the countries of the East - Syria, Egypt, Palestine. In 1909, the Russian Academy of Sciences elected Ivan Alekseevich Bunin as an honorary academician in the category of fine literature. In 1910, Bunin set off on a new journey - first to Europe, and then to Egypt and Ceylon. In 1912, in connection with the 25th anniversary of Bunin’s creative activity, he was honored at Moscow University; in the same year he was elected an honorary member of the Society of Amateurs Russian literature(in 1914-1915 he was the chairman of this society). In the autumn of 1912 - spring of 1913, Bunin again went abroad: to Trebizond, Constantinople, Bucharest, and the Bunins spent three winters in 1913-1915 in Capri. In addition to the listed places, in the period from 1907 to 1915, Bunin more than once visited Turkey, the countries of Asia Minor, Greece, Oran, Algeria, Tunisia and the outskirts of the Sahara, India, traveled almost all of Europe, especially Sicily and Italy, was in Romania and Serbia.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin reacted extremely hostilely to the February and October revolutions of 1917 and perceived them as a disaster. On May 21, 1918, Bunin left Moscow for Odessa, and in February 1920 he emigrated first to the Balkans and then to France. In France, for the first time he lived in Paris; in the summer of 1923 he moved to the Alpes-Maritimes and came to Paris only for some winter months. In emigration, relations with prominent Russian emigrants were difficult for the Bunins, especially since Bunin himself did not have a sociable character. In 1933, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, the first Russian writer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The official Soviet press explained the decision of the Nobel Committee as the machinations of imperialism. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, the Bunins settled in the south of France, in Grasse, at the Villa Jeannette, where they spent the entire war. Bunin refused any forms of cooperation with the Nazi occupiers and tried to constantly monitor events in Russia. In 1945 the Bunins returned to Paris. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin repeatedly expressed his desire to return to Russia; in 1946 he called the decree of the Soviet government “On the restoration of USSR citizenship to subjects of the former Russian Empire...” a “magnanimous measure,” but Zhdanov’s decree on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” (1946) , which trampled A. Akhmatova and M. Zoshchenko, led to Bunin forever abandoning his intention to return to his homeland. Last years the writer passed in poverty. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died in Paris. On the night of November 7-8, 1953, two hours after midnight, Bunin died: he died quietly and calmly, in his sleep. On his bed lay the novel by L.N. Tolstoy's "Resurrection". Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, near Paris.

In 1927-1942, a friend of the Bunin family was Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova, who became a deep late attachment to Ivan Alekseevich Bunin and wrote a number of memoirs ("The Grasse Diary", the article "In Memory of Bunin"). In the USSR, the first collected works of I.A. Bunin was published only after his death - in 1956 (five volumes in the Ogonyok Library).

Among the works of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin are novels, stories, short stories, essays, poems, memoirs, translations of works by classics of world poetry: “Poems” (1891; collection), “To the End of the World” (January 1897; collection of stories), “Under open sky" (1898; collection of poems), "Antonov apples" (1900; story), "Pines" (1901; story), " New road"(1901; story), "Leaf Fall" (1901; collection of poems; Pushkin Prize), "Chernozem" (1904; story), "Temple of the Sun" (1907-1911; cycle of essays about a trip to the countries of the East), "Village" (1910; story), "Sukhodol" (1911; story), "Brothers" (1914), "The Cup of Life" (1915; collection of stories), "The Master from San Francisco" (1915; story), "Cursed Days" (1918, published 1925; diary entries about the events of the October Revolution and its consequences), "Mitya's Love" (1925; collection of stories), "The Case of Cornet Elagin" (1927), "Sunstroke" (1927; collection of stories), "The Life of Arsenyev" (1927-1929, 1933 ; autobiographical novel; a separate edition was published in 1930 in Paris); "Dark Alleys", (1943; a series of short stories; published in New York), "The Liberation of Tolstoy" (1937, a philosophical and literary treatise about L.N. Tolstoy, published in Paris), "Memoirs" (1950; published in Paris ), "About Chekhov" (published posthumously in 1955, New York), translations - "The Song of Hiawatha" by G. Longfellow (1898, in some sources - 1896; Pushkin Prize).

Biography

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 22, 1870 in Voronezh into a noble family. He spent his childhood and youth on an impoverished estate in the Oryol province. Systematic education future writer I didn’t get it, which I regretted all my life. True, the elder brother Yuli, who graduated from the university with flying colors, went through the entire gymnasium course with Vanya. They studied languages, psychology, philosophy, social and natural sciences. It was Julius who had a great influence on the formation of Bunin’s tastes and views.

Bunin began writing early. Wrote essays, sketches, poems. In May 1887, the magazine "Rodina" published the poem "Beggar" by sixteen-year-old Vanya Bunin. From that time on, his more or less constant literary activity began, in which there was a place for both poetry and prose.

Outwardly, Bunin's poems looked traditional both in form and in theme: nature, joy of life, love, loneliness, sadness of loss and new rebirth. And yet, despite the imitation, there was some special intonation in Bunin’s poems. This became more noticeable with the release of the poetry collection “Falling Leaves” in 1901, which was enthusiastically received by both readers and critics.

Bunin wrote poetry until the end of his life, loving poetry with all his soul, admiring its musical structure and harmony. But already at the beginning of his creative career, he became more and more clearly a prose writer, and so strong and deep that Bunin’s first stories immediately earned recognition from the famous writers of that time: Chekhov, Gorky, Andreev, Kuprin.

In 1898, Bunin married a Greek woman, Anna Tsakni, having previously experienced a strong love and subsequent strong disappointment with Varvara Pashchenko. However, by Ivan Alekseevich’s own admission, he never loved Tsakni.

In the 1910s, Bunin traveled a lot, going abroad. He visits Leo Tolstoy, meets Chekhov, actively collaborates with the Gorky publishing house "Znanie", and meets the niece of the Chairman of the First Duma A.S. Muromtsev, Vera Muromtseva. And although Vera Nikolaevna actually became “Mrs. Bunina” already in 1906, they were able to officially register their marriage only in July 1922 in France. Only by this time did Bunin manage to obtain a divorce from Anna Tsakni.

Vera Nikolaevna was devoted to Ivan Alekseevich until the end of his life, becoming his faithful assistant in all matters. Possessing great spiritual strength, helping to steadfastly endure all the hardships and hardships of emigration, Vera Nikolaevna also had a great gift of patience and forgiveness, which was important when communicating with such a difficult and unpredictable person as Bunin was.

After the resounding success of his stories, the story "The Village" appeared in print, becoming immediately famous - Bunin's first major work. This is a bitter and very brave work, in which the half-crazed Russian reality with all its contrasts, precariousness, and broken destinies appeared before the reader. Bunin, perhaps one of the few Russian writers of that time, was not afraid to tell the unpleasant truth about the Russian village and the downtroddenness of the Russian peasant.

“The Village” and the “Sukhodol” that followed it determined Bunin’s attitude towards his heroes - the weak, the disadvantaged and the restless. But hence comes sympathy for them, pity, a desire to understand what is happening in the suffering Russian soul.

In parallel with the rural theme, the writer developed in his stories the lyrical theme, which had previously appeared in poetry. Female characters appeared, although barely outlined - the charming, airy Olya Meshcherskaya (the story "Easy Breathing"), the ingenuous Klasha Smirnova (the story "Klasha"). Later female types with all their lyrical passion will appear in Bunin’s emigrant stories and stories - “Ida”, “Mitya’s Love”, “The Case of Cornet Elagin” and, of course, in his famous cycle “Dark Alleys”.

In pre-revolutionary Russia, Bunin, as they say, “rested on his laurels” - he was awarded the Pushkin Prize three times; in 1909 he was elected academician in the category of fine literature, becoming the youngest academician of the Russian Academy.

In 1920, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna, who did not accept either the revolution or the Bolshevik power, emigrated from Russia, “having drunk the untold cup of mental suffering,” as Bunin later wrote in his biography. On March 28 they arrived in Paris.

Ivan Alekseevich returned to literary creativity slowly. Longing for Russia and uncertainty about the future depressed him. Therefore, the first collection of stories, "Scream", published abroad, consisted only of stories written in Bunin's happiest time - in 1911-1912.

And yet the writer gradually overcame the feeling of oppression. In the story “The Rose of Jericho” there are such heartfelt words: “There is no separation and loss as long as my soul, my Love, Memory lives! I immerse the roots and stems of my past into the living water of the heart, into the pure moisture of love, sadness and tenderness... "

In the mid-1920s, the Bunins moved to the small resort town of Grasse in the south of France, where they settled in the Belvedere villa, and later settled in the Janet villa. Here they were destined to live most of their lives, to survive the Second World War. In 1927, in Grasse, Bunin met the Russian poetess Galina Kuznetsova, who was vacationing there with her husband. Bunin was fascinated by the young woman, and she, in turn, was delighted with him (and Bunin knew how to charm women!). Their romance received wide publicity. The insulted husband left, Vera Nikolaevna suffered from jealousy. And here the incredible happened - Ivan Alekseevich managed to convince Vera Nikolaevna that his relationship with Galina was purely platonic, and they had nothing more than a relationship between a teacher and a student. Vera Nikolaevna, incredible as it may seem, believed. She believed it because she couldn’t imagine her life without Ian. As a result, Galina was invited to live with the Bunins and become “a member of the family.”

For almost fifteen years, Kuznetsova shared a common home with Bunin, playing the role of an adopted daughter and experiencing all the joys, troubles and hardships with them.

This love of Ivan Alekseevich was both happy and painfully difficult. She also turned out to be immensely dramatic. In 1942, Kuznetsova left Bunin, carried away opera singer Margo Stepun.

Ivan Alekseevich was shocked, he was depressed not only by the betrayal of his beloved woman, but also by whom she cheated with! “How she (G.) poisoned my life - she’s still poisoning me! 15 years! Weakness, lack of will...”, he wrote in his diary on April 18, 1942. This friendship between Galina and Margot was like a bleeding wound for Bunin for the rest of his life.

But despite all the adversities and endless hardships, Bunin’s prose gained new heights. The books “Rose of Jericho”, “Mitya’s Love”, collections of stories “Sunstroke” and “Tree of God” were published abroad. And in 1930, the autobiographical novel “The Life of Arsenyev” was published - a fusion of memoirs, memoirs and lyrical-philosophical prose.

On November 10, 1933, newspapers in Paris came out with huge headlines “Bunin - Nobel laureate". For the first time since the existence of this prize, the award for literature was presented to a Russian writer. Bunin's all-Russian fame grew into worldwide fame.

Every Russian in Paris, even those who had not read a single line of Bunin, took this as a personal holiday. The Russian people experienced the sweetest of feelings - a noble sense of national pride.

Being awarded the Nobel Prize was a huge event for the writer himself. Recognition came, and with it (albeit for a very short period, the Bunins were extremely impractical) material security.

In 1937, Bunin completed the book “The Liberation of Tolstoy,” which, according to experts, became one of the best books in all literature about Lev Nikolaevich. And in 1943, “Dark Alleys” was published in New York - the pinnacle of the writer’s lyrical prose, a true encyclopedia of love. In “Dark Alleys” you can find everything - sublime experiences, conflicting feelings, and violent passions. But what was closest to Bunin was pure, bright love, similar to the harmony of earth and sky. In “Dark Alleys” it is, as a rule, short, and sometimes instantaneous, but its light illuminates the hero’s entire life.

Some critics of that time accused Bunin's "Dark Alleys" of either pornography or senile voluptuousness. Ivan Alekseevich was offended by this: “I consider “Dark Alleys” the best thing I wrote, and they, idiots, think that I disgraced my gray hairs with them... The Pharisees do not understand that this is a new word, a new approach to life,” - he complained to I. Odoevtseva.

Until the end of his life he had to defend his favorite book from the “Pharisees.” In 1952, he wrote to F.A. Stepun, the author of one of the reviews of Bunin’s works: “It’s a pity that you wrote that in “Dark Alleys” there is some excess of consideration of female charms... What an “excess” there! I only gave a thousandth part of how men of all tribes and peoples “look” everywhere, always at women from the age of ten until the age of 90.”

The writer devoted the last years of his life to working on a book about Chekhov. Unfortunately, this work remained unfinished.

Ivan Alekseevich made his last diary entry on May 2, 1953. “This is still amazing to the point of tetanus! In some, very short time, I will be gone - and the affairs and fate of everything, everything will be unknown to me!”

At two o'clock in the morning from November 7 to 8, 1953, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died quietly. The funeral service was solemn - in the Russian church on Daru Street in Paris with a large crowd of people. All newspapers - both Russian and French - published extensive obituaries.

And the funeral itself took place much later, on January 30, 1954 (before that, the ashes were in a temporary crypt). Ivan Alekseevich was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve des Bois near Paris. Next to Bunin, after seven and a half years, his faithful and selfless life partner, Vera Nikolaevna Bunina, found her peace.

Literature.

Elena Vasilyeva, Yuri Pernatyev. "100 Famous Writers", "Folio" (Kharkov), 2001.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. Biography

"No, it's not the landscape that attracts me,
It’s not the colors that I’m trying to notice,
And what shines in these colors -
Love and joy of being."
I. Bunin

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 23, 1870 (October 10, old style) in Voronezh, on Dvoryanskaya Street. The impoverished landowners Bunins belonged to a noble family, among their ancestors - V.A. Zhukovsky and poetess Anna Bunina.

The Bunins appeared in Voronezh three years before Vanya was born, to train their eldest sons: Yulia (13 years old) and Evgeniy (12 years old). Julius was extremely capable of languages ​​and mathematics, studied brilliantly, Evgeniy studied poorly, or rather, did not study at all, and left school early; he was a gifted artist, but in those years he was not interested in painting, he was more interested in chasing pigeons. As for the youngest, his mother, Lyudmila Aleksandrovna, always said that “Vanya was different from other children from birth,” that she always knew that he was “special,” “no one has a soul like his.” .

In 1874, the Bunins decided to move from the city to the village to the Butyrki farm, in the Yeletsky district of the Oryol province, to the last estate of the family. This spring, Julius graduated from the gymnasium with a gold medal and in the fall was supposed to leave for Moscow to enter the mathematics department of the university.

In the village, little Vanya “heard enough” of songs and fairy tales from his mother and the servants. Memories of his childhood - from the age of seven, as Bunin wrote - are connected with “the field, with peasant huts” and their inhabitants. He spent whole days wandering around the nearby villages, herding cattle with peasant children, traveling at night, and making friends with some of them.

Imitating the shepherd, he and his sister Masha ate black bread, radishes, “rough and lumpy cucumbers,” and at this meal, “without realizing it, they partook of the earth itself, of all that sensual, material from which the world was created,” wrote Bunin in the autobiographical novel "The Life of Arsenyev". Even then, with a rare power of perception, he felt, by his own admission, “the divine splendor of the world” - main motive his creativity. It was at this age that an artistic perception of life was revealed in him, which, in particular, was expressed in the ability to portray people with facial expressions and gestures; He was a talented storyteller even then. When he was eight years old, Bunin wrote his first poem.

In his eleventh year he entered the Yelets Gymnasium. At first I studied well, everything came easy; could remember a whole page of poetry from one reading if it interested him. But year after year, his studies went worse; he remained in the third grade for the second year. The majority of teachers were dull and insignificant people. In the gymnasium, he wrote poetry, imitating Lermontov and Pushkin. He was not attracted by what is usually read at this age, but read, as he said, “whatever.”

He did not graduate from high school; he then studied independently under the guidance of his older brother Yuly Alekseevich, a candidate at the university. In the autumn of 1889, he began working in the editorial office of the newspaper "Orelsky Vestnik", often he was the actual editor; He published his stories, poems, literary-critical articles, and notes in the permanent section “Literature and Printing”. He lived by literary work and was in great need. The father went bankrupt, in 1890 he sold the estate in Ozerki without the estate, and having lost the estate, in 1893 he moved to Kmenka to live with his sister, his mother and Masha moved to Vasilyevskoye to Bunin’s cousin Sofya Nikolaevna Pusheshnikova. There was nowhere for the young poet to wait for help.

In the editorial office, Bunin met Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, the daughter of an Yelets doctor who worked as a proofreader. His passionate love for her was at times overshadowed by quarrels. In 1891 she got married, but their marriage was not legalized, they lived without getting married, the father and mother did not want to marry their daughter to a poor poet. Bunin's youth novel was composed plot basis the fifth book of "The Life of Arsenyev", published separately under the title "Lika".

Many people imagine Bunin as dry and cold. V.N. Muromtseva-Bunina says: “True, sometimes he wanted to seem like that - he was a first-class actor,” but “whoever did not know him completely cannot imagine what tenderness his soul was capable of.” He was one of those who did not open up to everyone. He was distinguished by the great strangeness of his nature. It is hardly possible to name another Russian writer who, with such self-forgetfulness, so impulsively expressed his feeling of love, as he did in letters to Varvara Pashchenko, combining in his dreams an image with everything beautiful that he found in nature, in poetry and music. In this side of his life - restraint in passion and search for an ideal in love - he resembles Goethe, who, by his own admission, has much that is autobiographical in Werther.

At the end of August 1892, Bunin and Pashchenko moved to Poltava, where Yuli Alekseevich worked as a statistician in the provincial zemstvo government. He took both Pashchenko and his younger brother into his management. In the Poltava zemstvo there was a group of intelligentsia involved in the populist movement of the 70-80s. The Bunin brothers were members of the editorial board of the Poltava Provincial Gazette, which had been under the influence of the progressive intelligentsia since 1894. Bunin published his works in this newspaper. By order of the zemstvo, he also wrote essays “about the fight against harmful insects, about the harvest of bread and herbs.” As he believed, so many of them were printed that they could make up three or four volumes.

He also contributed to the newspaper "Kievlyanin". Now Bunin's poems and prose began to appear more often in "thick" magazines - "Bulletin of Europe", "World of God", "Russian Wealth" - and attracted the attention of the luminaries of literary criticism. N.K. Mikhailovsky spoke well of the story "Village Sketch" (later entitled "Tanka") and wrote about the author what would come of it " great writer". At this time, Bunin's lyrics acquired a more objective character; the autobiographical motifs characteristic of the first collection of poems (it was published in Orel as a supplement to the newspaper "Orelsky Vestnik" in 1891), according to the author himself, too intimate, gradually disappeared from his creativity, which was now receiving more complete forms.

In 1893-1894, Bunin, in his words, “from falling in love with Tolstoy as an artist,” was a Tolstoyan and “adapted to the Bondar craft.” He visited Tolstoyan colonies near Poltava and went to Sumy district to visit sectarians in the village. Pavlovka - "Malevans", in their views close to Tolstoyans. At the very end of 1893, he visited the Tolstoyans of the Khilkovo farm, which belonged to the prince. YES. Khilkov. From there he went to Moscow to see Tolstoy and visited him one day between January 4 and 8, 1894. The meeting made a “stunning impression” on Bunin, as he wrote. Tolstoy dissuaded him from “saying goodbye to the end.”

In the spring and summer of 1894, Bunin traveled around Ukraine. “In those years,” he recalled, “I was in love with Little Russia, its villages and steppes, eagerly sought rapprochement with its people, eagerly listened to their songs, their soul.” 1895 was a turning point in Bunin’s life: after the “flight” of Pashchenko, who left Bunin and married his friend Arseniy Bibikov, in January he left his service in Poltava and went to St. Petersburg, and then to Moscow. Now he was entering the literary environment. Big success at a literary evening held on November 21 in the hall of the Credit Society in St. Petersburg, he encouraged him. There he gave a reading of the story "To the End of the World."

His impressions from more and more new meetings with writers were varied and sharp. D.V. Grigorovich and A.M. Zhemchuzhnikov, one of the creators of "Kozma Prutkov", who continued classic XIX century; populists N.K. Mikhailovsky and N.N. Zlatovpatsky; symbolists and decadents K.D. Balmont and F.K. Solgub. In December in Moscow, Bunin met the leader of the Symbolists V.Ya. Bryusov, December 12 at the “Big Moscow” hotel - with Chekhov. I was very interested in the talent of V.G. Bunin. Korolenko - Bunin met him on December 7, 1896 in St. Petersburg at the anniversary of K.M. Stanyukovich; in the summer of 1897 - with Kuprin in Lustdorf, near Odessa.

In June 1898, Bunin left for Odessa. Here he became close to the members of the “Association of South Russian Artists” who gathered for “Thursdays”, and became friends with the artists E.I. Bukovetsky, V.P. Kurovsky (Bunin’s poems “In Memory of a Friend” about her) and P.A. Nilus (Bunin took something from him for the stories “Galya Ganskaya” and “Chang’s Dreams”).

In Odessa, Bunin married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni (1879-1963) on September 23, 1898. Family life was not going well; Bunin and Anna Nikolaevna separated in early March 1900. Their son Kolya died on January 16, 1905.

At the beginning of April 1899, Bunin visited Yalta, met with Chekhov, and met Gorky. On his visits to Moscow, Bunin attended “Wednesdays” by N.D. Teleshov, which united prominent realist writers, willingly read his not yet published works; The atmosphere in this circle was friendly; no one was offended by frank, sometimes destructive criticism. On April 12, 1900, Bunin arrived in Yalta, where the Art Theater staged his “The Seagull”, “Uncle Vanya” and other performances for Chekhov. Bunin met Stanislavsky, Knipper, S.V. Rachmaninov, with whom he established a forever friendship.

The 1900s were a new frontier in Bunin's life. Repeated travels through the countries of Europe and to the East widened the world before his eyes, so greedy for new impressions. And in the literature of the beginning of the decade, with the release of new books, he won recognition as one of the best writers of his time. He performed mainly with poetry.

On September 11, 1900, he went with Kurovsky to Berlin, Paris, and Switzerland. In the Alps they rose to great heights. Upon returning from abroad, Bunin ended up in Yalta, lived in Chekhov’s house, and spent an “amazing week” with Chekhov, who arrived from Italy a little later. In Chekhov's family, Bunin became, as he put it, “one of our own”; He had an “almost brotherly relationship” with his sister Maria Pavlovna. Chekhov was always “gentle, friendly, and cared for him like an elder.” Bunin met with Chekhov, starting in 1899, every year, in Yalta and Moscow, during four years of their friendly communication, until Anton Pavlovich’s departure abroad in 1904, where he died. Chekhov predicted that Bunin would become a “great writer”; he wrote in the story "Pines" as "very new, very fresh and very good." “Great”, in his opinion, are “Dreams” and “Bonanza” - “there are places that are simply surprising.”

At the beginning of 1901, a collection of poems “Falling Leaves” was published, which attracted numerous critical reviews. Kuprin wrote about the “rare artistic subtlety” in conveying mood. For “Falling Leaves” and other poems, Blok recognized Bunin’s right to “one of the main places” among modern Russian poetry. "Falling Leaves" and Longfellow's translation of "The Song of Hiawatha" were awarded the Pushkin Prize Russian Academy Sciences, awarded to Bunin on October 19, 1903. Since 1902, the collected works of Bunin began to appear in separate numbered volumes in Gorky's publishing house "Knowledge". And again traveling - to Constantinople, to France and Italy, throughout the Caucasus, and so all his life he was attracted to various cities and countries.

Photo of Vera Muromtseva with Bunin's inscription on the back: V.N. Bunin, early 1927, Paris

On November 4, 1906, Bunin met in Moscow, in the house of B.K. Zaitseva, with Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, daughter of a member of the Moscow City Council and niece of the Chairman of the First State Duma S.A. Muromtseva. On April 10, 1907, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna set off from Moscow to the countries of the East - Egypt, Syria, Palestine. On May 12, having completed their “first long journey,” they went ashore in Odessa. Their life together began with this trip. The cycle of stories “Shadow of the Bird” (1907-1911) is about this journey. They combine diary entries - descriptions of cities, ancient ruins, art monuments, pyramids, tombs - and legends of ancient peoples, excursions into the history of their culture and the death of kingdoms. On the depiction of the East by Bunin Yu.I. Aikhenwald wrote: “He is captivated by the East, the “luminous countries”, which he now remembers with the unusual beauty of the lyrical word... For the East, biblical and modern, Bunin knows how to find the appropriate style, solemn and sometimes as if flooded with the sultry waves of the sun, decorated precious inlays and arabesques of imagery; and when we talk about gray-haired antiquity, lost in the distances of religion and morphology, then you get the impression as if some majestic chariot of humanity is moving before us."

Bunin's prose and poetry now acquired new colors. An excellent colorist, he, according to P.A. Nilus, “the principles of painting” decisively instilled in literature. Пpедшествовавшая пpоза, как отмечал сам Бунин, была такова, что "заставила некотоpых кpитиков тpактовать" его, напpимеp, "как меланхолического лиpика или певца двоpянских усадеб, певца идиллий", а обнаpужилась его литеpатуpная даятельность "более яpко и pазнообpазно лишь с 1908, 1909 years". These new features permeated Bunin's prose stories "Shadow of the Bird." The Academy of Sciences awarded Bunin the second Pushkin Prize in 1909 for poems and translations of Byron; the third - also for poetry. In the same year, Bunin was elected honorary academician.

The story "The Village", published in 1910, caused great controversy and was the beginning of Bunin's enormous popularity. “The Village,” the first major work, was followed by other stories and short stories, as Bunin wrote, “sharply depicting the Russian soul, its light and dark, often tragic foundations,” and his “merciless” works evoked “passionate hostile responses.” During these years, I felt how my literary powers were becoming stronger every day." Gorky wrote to Bunin that “no one has taken the village so deeply, so historically.” Bunin widely captured the life of the Russian people, touches on problems of historical, national, and what was the topic of the day - war and revolution - depicts, in his opinion, "in the footsteps of Radishchev", a contemporary village without any beauty. After Bunin's story, with its "merciless truth", based on deep knowledge of the "peasant kingdom", It became impossible to portray the peasants in the tone of populist idealization.

Bunin developed his view of the Russian village partly under the influence of travel, “after a sharp slap in the face abroad.” The village is not depicted as motionless, new trends penetrate it, new people appear, and Tikhon Ilyich himself thinks about his existence as a shopkeeper and innkeeper. The story “The Village” (which Bunin also called a novel), like his work as a whole, affirmed the realistic traditions of Russian classical literature in a century when they were attacked and rejected by modernists and decadents. It captures the richness of observations and colors, the strength and beauty of the language, the harmony of the drawing, the sincerity of tone and truthfulness. But "Village" is not traditional. People appeared in it, mostly new to Russian literature: the Krasov brothers, Tikhon’s wife, Rodka, Molodaya, Nikolka Gray and his son Deniska, girls and women at Molodaya and Deniska’s wedding. Bunin himself noted this.

In mid-December 1910, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna went to Egypt and further to the tropics - to Ceylon, where they stayed for half a month. We returned to Odessa in mid-April 1911. The diary of their voyage is “Many Waters.” The stories “Brothers” and “City of the King of Kings” are also about this journey. What the Englishman felt in “Brothers” is autobiographical. According to Bunin, travel played a “huge role” in his life; Regarding travel, he even developed, as he said, “a certain philosophy.” The 1911 diary “Many Waters,” published almost unchanged in 1925-1926, is a high example of lyrical prose that was new both for Bunin and for Russian literature.

He wrote that “this is something like Maupassant.” Close to this prose are the stories immediately preceding the diary - “The Shadow of a Bird” - poems in prose, as the author himself defined their genre. From their diary - a transition to "Sukhodol", which synthesized the experience of the author of "The Village" in creating everyday prose and lyrical prose. “Sukhodol” and the stories, soon written, marked a new creative rise of Bunin after “The Village” - in the sense of great psychological depth and complexity of images, as well as the novelty of the genre. In “Sukhodol”, in the foreground is not historical Russia with its way of life, as in “The Village,” but “the soul of a Russian person in the deep sense of the word, an image of the features of the Slavic psyche,” said Bunin.

Bunin followed his own path, did not join any fashionable literary trends or groups, in his words, “did not throw out any banners” and did not proclaim any slogans. Critics noted Bunin's powerful language, his art of raising “everyday phenomena of life” into the world of poetry. For him there were no “low” topics unworthy of the poet’s attention. His poems have a great sense of history. A reviewer for the magazine "Bulletin of Europe" wrote: "His historical style is unparalleled in our poetry... Prosaism, accuracy, beauty of the language are brought to the limit. There is hardly another poet whose style would be so unadorned, everyday, as here; throughout dozens of pages you will not find a single epithet, not a general comparison, not a single metaphor... such a simplification poetic language without damage to poetry - only true talent can do it... In terms of pictorial accuracy, Mr. Bunin has no rivals among Russian poets."

The book "The Cup of Life" (1915) touches on the deep problems of human existence. The French writer, poet and literary critic Rene Gil wrote to Bunin in 1921 about the “Cup of Life” created in French: “How complex everything is psychologically! And at the same time - this is your genius, everything is born from simplicity and from the very accurate observation of reality: an atmosphere is created where you breathe something strange and disturbing, emanating from the very act of life! We know this kind of suggestion, the suggestion of that secret that surrounds the action, in Dostoevsky; but with him it comes from the abnormality of imbalance characters, because of his nervous passion, which hovers, like a certain exciting aura, around some cases of madness. With you, it’s the other way around: everything is a radiation of life, full of strength, and it disturbs precisely with its own forces, primitive forces, where under the visible unity lurks complexity, something inescapable, violating the usual clear norm.”

Bunin developed his ethical ideal under the influence of Socrates, whose views were set forth in the writings of his students Xenophon and Plato. More than once he read the semi-philosophical, semi-poetic work of the “divine Plato” (Pushkin) in the form of a dialogue - “Phidon”. After reading the dialogues, he wrote in his diary on August 21, 1917: “How much Socrates said in Indian and Jewish philosophy!” " Last minutes“Socrates,” he notes in his diary the next day, “as always, worried me very much.”

Bunin was fascinated by his teaching about the value of the human personality. And he saw in each of the people, to some extent, “concentration ... of high forces,” to the knowledge of which, Bunin wrote in the story “Returning to Rome,” Socrates called for. In his enthusiasm for Socrates, he followed Tolstoy, who, as V. Ivanov said, went “following the paths of Socrates in search of the norm of goodness.” Tolstoy was close to Bunin in that for him goodness and beauty, ethics and aesthetics are at liberty. “Beauty is like the crown of goodness,” wrote Tolstoy. Bunin affirmed eternal values ​​in his work - goodness and beauty. This gave him a feeling of connection, unity with the past, historical continuity of existence. “Brothers”, “Lord from San Francisco”, “Looping Ears”, based on real facts of modern life, are not only accusatory, but deeply philosophical. "Brothers" is a particularly clear example. This is a story about the eternal themes of love, life and death, and not just about the dependent existence of colonial peoples. The embodiment of the concept of this story is equally based on the impressions of the trip to Ceylon and on the myth of Mara - the legend of the god of life and death. Mara is the evil demon of Buddhists - at the same time - the personification of being. Bunin took a lot of prose and poetry from Russian and world folklore; his attention was attracted by Buddhist and Muslim legends, Syrian legends, Chaldean, Egyptian myths and myths of idolaters of the Ancient East, legends of the Arabs.

His sense of homeland, language, history was enormous. Bunin said: “all these sublime words, wondrously beautiful songs, cathedrals - all this is needed, all this has been created over the centuries...”. One of the sources of his creativity was folk speech. Poet and literary critic G.V. Adamovich, who knew Bunin well and communicated closely with him in France, wrote to the author of this article on December 19, 1969: Bunin, of course, “knew, loved, and appreciated folk art, but was extremely clear about fakes based on it and about ostentatious style russe. Cruel - and correct - his review of Gorodetsky's poems is an example of this. Even Blok's "Kulikovo Field" - a wonderful thing, in my opinion, irritated him precisely because of his "too Russian" attire... He said - "this is Vasnetsov" , that is, masquerade and opera. But he treated things that were not “masquerade” differently: I remember, for example, something about “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” The meaning of his words was approximately the same as in the words of Pushkin: all the poets gathered together could not compose such a miracle! But the translations of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign" outraged him, in particular, Balmont’s translation. Because of the counterfeit of an exaggerated Russian style or meter, he despised Shmelev, although he recognized his talent. In Bunin in general He had a rare ear for falsehood, for the “pedal”: as soon as he heard falsehood, he flew into a rage. Because of this, he loved Tolstoy so much and once, I remember, he said: “Tolstoy, who does not have a single exaggerated word anywhere...”

In May 1917, Bunin arrived in the village of Glotovo, on the Vasilyevskoye estate, Oryol province, and lived here all summer and autumn. On October 23, my wife and I left for Moscow; on October 26, we arrived in Moscow and lived on Povarskaya (now Vorovskogo Street), in Baskakov’s house No. 26, apt. 2, with Vera Nikolaevna’s parents, the Muromtsevs. The time was alarming, battles were going on, “past their windows,” wrote A.E. Gruzinsky on November 7 to A.B. Derman, “a gun thundered along Povarskaya.” Bunin lived in Moscow during the winter of 1917-1918. A guard was set up in the lobby of the building where the Murmtsevs had an apartment; the doors were locked, the gates were blocked with logs. Bunin was also on duty.

A house on the Vasilievsky estate (the village of Glotovo, Oryol province), where, according to Bunin, the story “Easy Breathing” was written

Bunin became involved in literary life, which, in spite of everything, with all the rapidity of social, political and military events, with devastation and famine, still did not stop. He visited the “Book Publishing House of Writers”, took part in its work, in the literary circle “Sreda” and in the Art Circle.

On May 21, 1918, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna left Moscow - through Orsha and Minsk to Kyiv, then to Odessa; January 26, old style 1920 sailed to Constantinople, then via Sofia and Belgrade arrived in Paris on March 28, 1920. Began long years emigration - in Paris and in the south of France, in Grasse, near Cannes. Bunin told Vera Nikolaevna that “he cannot live in the new world, that he belongs to the old world, to the world of Goncharov, Tolstoy, Moscow, St. Petersburg; that poetry is only there, and in the new world he does not grasp it.”

Bunin grew as an artist all the time. "Mitya's Love" (1924), "Sunstroke" (1925), "The Case of Cornet Elagin" (1925), and then "The Life of Arsenyev" (1927-1929, 1933) and many other works marked new achievements in Russian prose. Bunin himself spoke about the “piercing lyricism” of “Mitya’s Love.” This is what is most exciting about his stories and stories of the last three decades. They also - one might say in the words of their author - have a certain “fashionability”, poetic quality. The prose of these years excitingly conveys a sensory perception of life. Contemporaries noted the great philosophical meaning of such works as "Mitya's Love" or "The Life of Arsenyev." In them, Bunin broke through “to a deep metaphysical feeling of the tragic nature of man.” K.G. Paustovsky wrote that “The Life of Arsenyev” is “one of the most remarkable phenomena in world literature.”

In 1927-1930, Bunin wrote short stories ("Elephant", "The Sky Above the Wall" and many others) - a page, half a page, and sometimes several lines, they were included in the book "God's Tree". What Bunin wrote in this genre was the result of a bold search for new forms of extremely laconic writing, which began not with Tergenev, as some of his contemporaries claimed, but with Tolstoy and Chekhov. Professor of Sofia University P. Bicilli wrote: “It seems to me that the collection “The Tree of God” is the most perfect of all Bunin’s creations and the most revealing. No other one has such eloquent laconicism, such clarity and subtlety of writing, such creative freedom, such truly royal domination over matter. No other one therefore contains so much data for studying its method, for understanding what lies at its basis and on what it, in essence, is exhausted. This is the most seemingly simple, but also the rarest and a valuable quality that Bunin has in common with the most truthful Russian writers, with Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov: honesty, hatred of all falsehood...".

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. On the street, the Swedes, seeing the Russian writer, looked around. Bunin pulled his lambskin cap over his eyes and grumbled: “What is it?” A perfect success for the tenor.

The wonderful Russian writer Boris Zaitsev spoke about Bunin’s Nobel days: “...You see, well, we were some kind of last people there, emigrants, and suddenly an emigrant writer was awarded an international prize! A Russian writer!.. And they awarded it not for some kind of political writing, but still for artistic writing... At that time I was writing in the newspaper "Vozpozhdenie"... So I was urgently assigned to write an editorial about receiving the Nobel Prize. It was very late, I remember that it was ten in the evening when they told me this. For the first time in my life, I went to the printing house and wrote at night... I remember that I came out in such an excited state (from the printing house), went to place d'Italie and there, you know, I went around all the bistros and drank a glass in each bistro cognac for the health of Ivan Bunin!.. I came home in such a cheerful mood... at about three in the morning, four, maybe..."

In 1936, Bunin went on a trip to Germany and other countries, as well as to meet with publishers and translators. In the German city of Lindau, for the first time he encountered fascist ways; he was arrested and subjected to an unceremonious and humiliating search. In October 1939, Bunin settled in Grasse at the Villa Jeannette and lived here throughout the war. Here he wrote the book “Dark Alleys” - stories about love, as he himself said, “about its “dark” and most often very gloomy and cruel alleys.” This book, according to Bunin, “talks about the tragic and many tender and beautiful things - I think that this is the best and most original thing I have written in my life.”

Under the Germans, Bunin did not publish anything, although he lived in great poverty and hunger. He treated the conquerors with hatred and rejoiced at the victories of the Soviet and allied troops. In 1945, he said goodbye to Grasse forever and returned to Paris on the first of May. He has been sick a lot in recent years. Nevertheless, he wrote a book of memoirs and worked on the book “About Chekhov,” which he did not manage to finish. In total, Bunin wrote ten new books while in exile.

In letters and diaries, Bunin talks about his desire to return to Moscow. But in old age and illness, it was not easy to decide to take such a step. The main thing was that there was no certainty whether hopes for a quiet life and the publication of books would come true. Bunin hesitated. The “case” about Akhmatova and Zoshchenko, the noise in the press around these names finally determined his decision. He wrote to M.A. Aldanov on September 15, 1947: “Today a letter from Teleshov - I wrote on the evening of September 7... “What a pity that you did not experience the period when yours was recruited big Book, when you were so expected here, when you could have been fed up, and rich, and in such great esteem! “After reading this, I tore my hair out for an hour. And then I immediately calmed down, remembering what could have been for me instead of satiety, wealth and honor from Zhdanov and Fadeev...”

Bunin is now read in all European languages ​​and in some Eastern languages. Here it is published in millions of copies. On his 80th birthday, in 1950, François Mauriac wrote to him about his admiration for his work, about the sympathy that his personality and his cruel fate inspired. Andre Gide, in a letter published in the Le Figaro newspaper, says that on the threshold of his 80th birthday he turns to Bunin and greets him “on behalf of France,” calls him a great artist and writes: “I don’t know writers... who the sensations would be more accurate and at the same time unexpected." R. Rolland, who called him a “genius artist”, Henri de Regnier, T. Mann, R.-M. admired Bunin’s work. Rilke, Jerome Jerome, Yaroslav Ivashkevich. Reviews of German, French, English, etc. The press from the beginning of the 1920s onwards were mostly enthusiastic, giving him worldwide recognition. Back in 1922, the English magazine "The Nation and Athenaeum" wrote about the books "The Gentleman from San Francisco" and "The Village" as extremely significant; in this review everything is sprinkled with great praise: “A new planet in our sky!!.”, “Apocalyptic power...”. At the end: “Bunin has won his place in world literature.” Bunin's prose was equated to the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, while saying that he “updated” Russian art “both in form and content.” He brought new features and new colors to the realism of the last century, which brought him closer to the impressionists.

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 go through... 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.

You are a thought, you are a dream. Through the smoky snowstorm
Crosses are running - arms outstretched.
I listen to the pensive spruce -
A melodious ringing... Everything is just thoughts and sounds!
What lies in the grave, is that you?
Marked by separations and sadness
Your hard way. Now they are gone. Crosses
They keep only the ashes. Now you are a thought. You are eternal.

Great Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate, poet, publicist, literary critic and prose writer-translator. It is these words that reflect Bunin’s activities, achievements and creativity. The whole life of this writer was multifaceted and interesting, he always chose his own path and did not listen to those who tried to “restructure” his views on life, he was not a member of any literary society, much less a political party. He can be considered one of those individuals who were unique in their creativity.

Earliest childhood

On October 10 (Old Style), 1870, a little boy Ivan was born in the city of Voronezh, whose work will leave a bright mark in Russian and world literature in the future.

Despite the fact that Ivan Bunin came from an ancient noble family, his childhood did not pass in a big city, but in one of the family estates (it was a small farm). Parents could afford to hire a home teacher. The writer recalled more than once during his life the time when Bunin grew up and studied at home. He spoke only positively about this “golden” period of his life. I remembered with gratitude and respect this student of Moscow University, who, according to the writer, awakened in him a passion for literature, because, despite such a young age, little Ivan read “The Odyssey” and “ English poets" Even Bunin himself later said that this was the very first impetus for poetry and writing in general. Ivan Bunin showed his artistry quite early. The poet's creativity found expression in his talent as a reader. He read excellently own works and interested the most dull listeners.

Studying at the gymnasium

When Vanya was ten years old, his parents decided that he had reached the age when it was already possible to send him to a gymnasium. So Ivan began studying at the Yelets gymnasium. During this period, he lived away from his parents, with his relatives in Yelets. Entering the gymnasium and studying itself became a kind of turning point for him, because for the boy, who had lived with his parents all his life before and had practically no restrictions, it was really difficult to get used to the new city life. New rules, strictures and prohibitions entered his life. Later he lived in rented apartments, but also did not feel comfortable in these houses. His studies at the gymnasium lasted relatively short, because after only 4 years he was expelled. The reason was non-payment of tuition and absence from vacation.

The external path

After everything he has experienced, Ivan Bunin settles on the estate of his deceased grandmother in Ozerki. Guided by the instructions of his older brother Julius, he quickly completes the gymnasium course. He studied some subjects more diligently. And even a university course was taught on them. Yuli, the elder brother of Ivan Bunin, was always distinguished by his education. Therefore, it was he who helped his younger brother with his studies. Yuliy and Ivan had a fairly trusting relationship. For this reason, it was he who became the first reader, as well as a critic of the early creativity Ivan Bunin.

First lines

According to the writer himself, his future talent was formed under the influence of the stories of relatives and friends that he heard in the place where he spent his childhood. It was there that he learned the first subtleties and features of his native language, listened to stories and songs, which in the future helped the writer find unique comparisons in his works. All this had the best influence on Bunin’s talent.

He began writing poetry at a very early age. Bunin's work was born, one might say, when the future writer was only seven years old. When all the other children were just learning to read and write, little Ivan had already begun to write poetry. He really wanted to achieve success, mentally comparing himself with Pushkin and Lermontov. I read with enthusiasm the works of Maykov, Tolstoy, Fet.

At the very beginning of professional creativity

Ivan Bunin first appeared in print at a fairly young age, namely at 16 years old. Bunin's life and work have always been closely intertwined with each other. Well, it all started, of course, small, when two of his poems were published: “Over the grave of S. Ya. Nadson” and “The Village Beggar.” Within a year, ten of his best poems and his first stories, “Two Wanderers” and “Nefedka,” were published. These events became the beginning of the literary and writing activity of the great poet and prose writer. First appeared main topic of his writings - a person. In Bunin’s work, the theme of psychology and the mysteries of the soul will remain key until the last line.

In 1889, young Bunin, under the influence of the revolutionary-democratic movement of the intelligentsia - the populists, moved to his brother in Kharkov. But soon he becomes disillusioned with this movement and quickly moves away from it. Instead of collaborating with the populists, he leaves for the city of Orel and there he begins his work in the Orlovsky Vestnik. In 1891, the first collection of his poems was published.

First love

Despite the fact that throughout his life the themes of Bunin’s work were varied, almost the entire first collection of poems is imbued with the experiences of young Ivan. It was at this time that the writer had his first love. He lived in a civil marriage with Varvara Pashchenko, who became the author’s muse. This is how love first appeared in Bunin’s work. The young people often quarreled and could not find common language. Everything that happened in their life together made him disappointed every time and wonder, is love worth such experiences? Sometimes it seemed that someone from above simply did not want them to be together. At first it was Varvara’s father’s ban on the wedding of young people, then, when they finally decided to live in a civil marriage, Ivan Bunin unexpectedly finds a lot of disadvantages in their life together, and then becomes completely disappointed in it. Later, Bunin comes to the conclusion that he and Varvara are not suitable for each other in character, and soon the young people simply break up. Almost immediately, Varvara Pashchenko marries Bunin’s friend. This brought many experiences to the young writer. He becomes completely disillusioned with life and love.

Productive work

At this time, Bunin's life and work are no longer so similar. The writer decides to sacrifice personal happiness and devotes himself entirely to work. During this period, tragic love emerges more and more clearly in Bunin’s work.

Almost at the same time, fleeing loneliness, he moved to his brother Julius in Poltava. There is an upsurge in the literary field. His stories are published in leading magazines, and he is gaining popularity as a writer. The themes of Bunin's work are mainly devoted to man, the secrets of the Slavic soul, the majestic Russian nature and selfless love.

After Bunin visited St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1895, he gradually began to enter the larger literary environment, into which he fit very organically. Here he met Bryusov, Sologub, Kuprin, Chekhov, Balmont, Grigorovich.

Later, Ivan begins to correspond with Chekhov. It was Anton Pavlovich who predicted to Bunin that he would become a “great writer.” Later, carried away by moral sermons, she makes him her idol and even tries to live by his advice for a certain time. Bunin asked for an audience with Tolstoy and was honored to meet the great writer in person.

A new step on the creative path

In 1896, Bunin tried himself as a translator of works of art. In the same year, his translation of Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” was published. In this translation, everyone saw Bunin’s work from a different perspective. His contemporaries recognized his talent and highly appreciated the writer’s work. Ivan Bunin received for this translation Pushkin Prize first degree, which gave the writer, and now also the translator, a reason to be even more proud of his achievements. To receive such high praise, Bunin did literally titanic work. After all, the translation of such works itself requires perseverance and talent, and for this the writer also had to learn on his own English language. As the result of the translation showed, he succeeded.

Second attempt to get married

Remaining free for so long, Bunin decided to get married again. This time his choice fell on a Greek woman, the daughter of a wealthy emigrant A. N. Tsakni. But this marriage, like the last one, did not bring joy to the writer. After a year of married life, his wife left him. In their marriage they had a son. Little Kolya died very young, at the age of 5, from meningitis. Ivan Bunin was very upset about the loss of his only child. The writer’s future life was such that he had no more children.

Mature years

The first book of stories entitled “To the End of the World” was published in 1897. Almost all critics assessed its content very positively. A year later, another collection of poems, “Under the Open Air,” was published. It was these works that brought the writer popularity in Russian literature that time. Bunin's work was brief, but at the same time succinct, presented to the public, who highly appreciated and accepted the author's talent.

But Bunin’s prose really gained great popularity in 1900, when the story “Antonov Apples” was published. This work was created based on the writer’s memories of his rural childhood. For the first time, nature was vividly depicted in Bunin’s work. It was the carefree time of childhood that awakened in him the best feelings and memories. The reader plunges headlong into that beautiful early autumn, which beckons the prose writer just at the time of collecting Antonov apples. For Bunin, these, as he admitted, were the most precious and unforgettable memories. It was joy, real life and carefree. And the disappearance of the unique smell of apples is, as it were, the extinction of everything that brought the writer a lot of pleasure.

Reproaches for noble origin

Many ambiguously assessed the meaning of the allegory “the smell of apples” in the work “Antonov Apples”, since this symbol was very closely intertwined with the symbol of the nobility, which, due to Bunin’s origin, was not at all alien to him. These facts became the reason that many of his contemporaries, for example M. Gorky, criticized Bunin’s work, saying that Antonov apples smell good, but they do not smell democratic at all. However, the same Gorky noted the elegance of literature in the work and Bunin’s talent.

It is interesting that for Bunin, reproaches about his noble origin meant nothing. Swagger or arrogance was alien to him. Many people at that time looked for subtexts in Bunin’s works, wanting to prove that the writer regretted the disappearance of serfdom and the leveling of the nobility as such. But Bunin pursued a completely different idea in his work. He was not sorry for the change of system, but sorry for the fact that all life is passing, and that we all once loved with our full hearts, but this is also becoming a thing of the past... He was sad that he no longer enjoyed its beauty .

The Wanderings of a Writer

Ivan Bunin was in the soul all his life. This was probably the reason that he did not stay anywhere for a long time, he loved to travel to different cities, where he often got ideas for his works.

Starting in October, he traveled with Kurovsky throughout Europe. Visited Germany, Switzerland, France. Literally 3 years later, with another friend of his - the playwright Naydenov - he was again in France and visited Italy. In 1904, becoming interested in the nature of the Caucasus, he decided to go there. The journey was not in vain. This trip, many years later, inspired Bunin to write a whole series of stories, “The Shadow of a Bird,” which are associated with the Caucasus. The world saw these stories in 1907-1911, and much later the 1925 story “Many Waters” appeared, also inspired by the wondrous nature of this region.

At this time, nature is most clearly reflected in Bunin’s work. This was another facet of the writer’s talent - travel essays.

"Whoever finds your love, keep it..."

Life brought Ivan Bunin together with many people. Some passed and died, others stayed for a long time. An example of this was Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva. Bunin met her in November 1906, at a friend’s house. Smart and educated in many fields, the woman really was his best friend, and even after the writer’s death she prepared his manuscripts for publication. She wrote the book “The Life of Bunin”, in which she placed the most important and Interesting Facts from the life of a writer. He told her more than once: “I wouldn’t have written anything without you. I would have disappeared!

Here love and creativity in Bunin’s life find each other again. Probably, it was at that moment that Bunin realized that he had found the one he had been looking for for many years. He found his beloved in this woman, a person who would always support him in Hard time, a comrade who will not betray. Since Muromtseva became his life partner, the writer with renewed vigor wanted to create and compose something new, interesting, crazy, this gave him vitality. It was at that moment that the traveler in him woke up again, and since 1907 Bunin traveled half of Asia and Africa.

World recognition

In the period from 1907 to 1912, Bunin did not stop creating. And in 1909 he was awarded the second Pushkin Prize for his “Poems 1903-1906”. Here we remember the man in Bunin’s work and the essence of human actions, which the writer tried to understand. Also noted were many translations, which he did no less brilliantly than he composed new works.

On November 9, 1933, an event occurred that became the pinnacle of the writer’s writing activity. He received a letter informing him that Bunin had been awarded the Nobel Prize. Ivan Bunin is the first Russian writer to be awarded this high award and prize. His creativity reached its peak - he gained worldwide fame. From then on, he began to be recognized as the best of the best in his field. But Bunin did not stop his activities and, like a truly famous writer, worked with renewed energy.

The theme of nature in Bunin’s work continues to occupy one of the main places. The writer also writes a lot about love. This became a reason for critics to compare the works of Kuprin and Bunin. Indeed, there are many similarities in their works. They are written in simple and sincere language, full of lyricism, ease and naturalness. The characters' characters are written very subtly (from a psychological point of view.) There is a degree of sensuality, a lot of humanity and naturalness.

Comparing the works of Kuprin and Bunin gives reason to highlight such common features of their works as the tragic fate of the main character, the assertion that there will be retribution for any happiness, the exaltation of love over all other human feelings. Both writers, through their work, argue that the meaning of life is love, and that a person endowed with the talent to love is worthy of worship.

Conclusion

The life of the great writer was interrupted on November 8, 1953 in Paris, where he and his wife emigrated after starting in the USSR. He is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

It is simply impossible to briefly describe Bunin's work. He created a lot during his life, and each of his works is worthy of attention.

It is difficult to overestimate his contribution not only to Russian literature, but also to world literature. His works are popular in our time among both young people and the older generation. This is truly the kind of literature that has no age and is always relevant and touching. And now Ivan Bunin is popular. The biography and work of the writer arouse interest and sincere veneration among many.

Name: Ivan Bunin

Age: 83 years old

Place of Birth: Voronezh, Russia

A place of death: Paris, France

Activity: Russian writer and poet

Family status: was married to Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva

Ivan Bunin - biography

Bunin was born on October 22, 1870 in Voronezh. He belonged to an ancient but impoverished family that gave Russia Vasily Zhukovsky, the illegitimate son of the landowner Afanasy Bunin. Ivan Bunin's father, Alexey Nikolaevich, fought in the Crimea in his youth, then lived on his estate the usual, repeatedly described landowner life - hunting, warmly welcoming guests, drinking and cards. His carelessness ultimately brought his family to the brink of ruin.

All household concerns lay on the shoulders of the mother, Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Chubarova, a quiet, pious woman, five of whose nine children died in infancy. The death of his beloved sister Sasha seemed like a terrible injustice to little Vanya, and he forever stopped believing in the good God that both his mother and the church talked about.

Three years after Vanya’s birth, the family moved to his grandfather’s estate Butyrki in the Oryol province. “Here, in the deepest silence of the field,” the writer later recalled about the beginning of his biography, “my childhood passed, full of sad and peculiar poetry.” His childhood impressions were reflected in the autobiographical novel “The Life of Arsenyev,” which Bunin himself considered his main book.

He noted that early on he acquired amazing sensitivity: “My vision was such that I saw all seven stars in the Pleiades, I could hear the whistle of a marmot a mile away. evening field, got drunk, smelling the smell of lily of the valley or an old book.” The parents paid little attention to their son, and his teacher became his brother Yuli, who graduated from the university, managed to participate in the revolutionary circles of the Black Peredelites, for which he served a year in prison and was expelled from Moscow for three years.

In 1881, Bunin entered the Yeletsk gymnasium. He was an average student, and was expelled from the sixth grade for non-payment - family affairs became very bad. The estate in Butyrki was sold, and the family moved to neighboring Ozerki, where Ivan had to finish his high school course as an external student, under the guidance of his older brother. “Less than a year had passed,” said Julius, “he had grown so mentally that I could already have conversations with him almost as an equal on many topics.” In addition to studying languages, philosophy, psychology, social and natural sciences, thanks to his brother, a writer and journalist, Ivan became especially interested in literature.

At the age of 16, Ivan Bunin began “to write poetry especially zealously” and “wrote an unusual amount of paperwork” before he decided to send a poem to the capital’s magazine “Rodina.” To his surprise, it was printed. He forever remembered the delight with which he came from the post office with the latest issue of the magazine, re-reading his poems every minute. They were dedicated to the memory of the fashionable poet Nadson, who died of consumption.

Weak, openly imitative verses did not stand out among hundreds of their kind. Many years passed before Bunin's true talent was revealed in poetry. Until the end of his life, he considered himself primarily a poet and was very angry when his friends said that his works were exquisite, but old-fashioned - “nobody writes like that now.” He really avoided all newfangled trends, remaining faithful traditions of the 19th century century

An early, barely visible dawn, the heart of sixteen years.
The drowsy haze of the garden with the linden light of warmth.
Quiet and mysterious is the house with the last cherished window.
There is a curtain in the window, and behind it is the Sun of my universe.

This is a memory of the very first youthful love for Emilia Fechner (the prototype of Ankhen in “The Life of Arsenyev”), the young governess of the daughters of O.K. who lived next door. Tubbe, distiller of the landowner Bakhtiyarov. The writer’s brother Evgeniy married Tubba’s stepdaughter, Nastya, in 1885. Young Bunin was so carried away by Emilia that Tubbe considered it best to send her back home.

Soon from Ozerki, having received the consent of his parents, he went to adult life and a young poet. At parting, the mother blessed her son, whom she considered “special from all her children,” with a family icon depicting the meal of the Three Pilgrims with Abraham. It was, as Bunin wrote in one of his diaries, “a shrine that connects me with a tender and reverent connection with my family, with the world where my cradle, my childhood is.” The 18-year-old boy left his home as an almost fully formed person, “with a certain amount of life baggage - knowledge of the real people, not fictitious, with knowledge of small-scale life, the village intelligentsia, with a very subtle sense of nature, almost an expert in the Russian language, literature, with a heart open to love."

He met love in Orel. 19-year-old Bunin settled there after long wanderings around Crimea and southern Russia. Having got a job at the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper, he became friends with the young daughter of a doctor, Varya Pashchenko - she worked as a proofreader for the same newspaper. With the money of their brother Yuli, they rented an apartment in Poltava, where they lived in a civil marriage - Varya’s father was against the wedding. Three years later, Doctor Pashchenko, seeing Bunin’s immense passion, still gave his permission for the marriage, but Varya hid her father’s letter. She preferred his wealthy friend Arseny Bibikov to the poor writer. “Oh, to hell with them,” Bunin wrote to his brother, “here, obviously, 200 acres of land played a role.”

Since 1895, Bunin left the service and, having moved to Moscow, devoted himself entirely to literature, earning money through poetry and short stories. His idol of those years was Leo Tolstoy, and he even went to the count to ask for advice on how to live. Gradually he became a member of the editorial staff of literary magazines, met famous writers, even became friends with Chekhov and learned a lot from him. Both the populist realists and the symbolist innovators appreciated him, but neither one nor the other considered him “theirs.”

He himself was more inclined towards the realists and constantly attended the “Wednesdays” of the writer Teleshov, where Gorky, the Wanderer, and Leonid Andreev attended. In the summer - Yalta with Chekhov and Stanyukovich and Lustdorf near Odessa with writers Fedorov and Kuprin. “This beginning of my new life was the darkest spiritual time, the most internally dead time throughout my youth, although outwardly I lived then in a very varied, sociable way, in public, so as not to be left alone with myself.”

In Lustdorf, Bunin, unexpectedly for everyone, even for himself, married 19-year-old Anna Tsakni. She was the daughter of an Odessa Greek publisher, owner of the newspaper Southern Review, with which Bunin collaborated. They got married after a few days of dating. “At the end of June I went to Lustdorf to visit Fedorov. Kuprin, the Kartashevs, then the Tsaknis, who lived in a dacha at the 7th station. “I suddenly proposed in the evening,” Bunin wrote in his diary in 1898.

He was fascinated by her large black eyes and mysterious silence. After the wedding, it turned out that Anya is very talkative. Together with her mother, she mercilessly scolded her husband for lack of money and frequent absences. Less than a year later, he and Anna broke up, and two years later this “vaudeville” marriage broke up. Their son Nikolai died of scarlet fever at the age of five. Unlike Varvara Pashchenko, Anna Tsakni did not leave any traces in Bunin’s work. Varvara can be recognized in Lika from “The Life of Arsenyev” and in many of the heroines of “Dark Alleys”.

First success in creative biography came to Bunin in 1903. For the collection of poems "Leaf Fall" he received the Pushkin Prize, highest award Academy of Sciences.

Critics also recognized his prose. The story “Antonov Apples” secured for the writer the title of “singer of noble nests,” although he portrayed the life of the Russian village in no way blissfully and was not inferior in terms of “bitter truth” to himself. In 1906 at literary evening At the writer Zaitsev's, where Bunin read his poems, he met Vera Muromtseva, the niece of the chairman of the first State Duma. “The quiet young lady with Leonard’s eyes” immediately attracted Bunin. This is how Vera Nikolaevna talked about their meeting:

“I stopped thinking: should I go home? Bunin appeared at the door. “How did you get here?” - he asked. I was angry, but calmly replied: “The same as you.” - “But who are you?” -"Human". - "What do you do?" - “Chemistry. I study at the natural sciences department of the Higher Women’s Courses.” - “But where else can I see you?” - “Only at our house. We accept on Saturdays. On other days I am very busy." Having listened to enough talk about the dissolute life of artistic people,

Vera Nikolaevna was openly afraid of the writer. Nevertheless, she could not resist his persistent advances and in the same 1906 she became “Mrs. Bunina,” although they were able to officially register their marriage only in July 1922 in France.

They went on their honeymoon to the East for a long time - to Egypt, Palestine, Syria. In our wanderings we reached Ceylon itself. Travel routes were not planned in advance. Bunin was so happy with Vera Nikolaevna that he admitted that he would quit writing: “But my business is lost - I probably won’t write anymore... A poet shouldn’t be happy, he should live alone, and the better for him, the worse for him.” scriptures. The better you are, the worse...” he told his wife. “In this case, I’ll try to be as bad as possible,” she joked.

Nevertheless, the next decade became the most fruitful in the writer’s work. He was awarded another prize from the Academy of Sciences and was elected its honorary academician. “Just at the hour when the telegram arrived with congratulations to Ivan Alekseevich on his election to academician in the category of fine literature,” said Vera Bunina, “the Bibikovs were having dinner with us. Bunin had no bad feeling towards Arseny, they even, one might say, were friends. Bibikova stood up from the table, was pale, but calm. A minute later, separately and dryly, she said: “Congratulations.”

After the “sharp slap in the face abroad,” as he called his travels, Bunin ceased to be afraid of “exaggerating his colors.” The First World War did not arouse patriotic enthusiasm in him. He saw the country's weakness and was afraid of its destruction. In 1916 he wrote many poems, including these:

The rye is burning, the grain is flowing.
But who will reap and knit?
The smoke is burning, the alarm is ringing.
But who will decide to fill it?
Now the demon-possessed army will arise, and like Mamai, it will go through all of Rus'...
But the world is empty - who will save? But there is no God - who should be punished?

Soon this prophecy was fulfilled. After the start of the revolution, Bunin and his family left the Oryol estate for Moscow, from where he watched with bitterness the death of everything that was dear to him. These observations were reflected in a diary published later under the title “Cursed Days.” Bunin considered the culprits of the revolution not only to be the “possessed” Bolsheviks, but also to the beautiful-hearted intelligentsia. “It was not the people who started the revolution, but you. The people did not care at all about everything we wanted, what we were unhappy with...

Even helping the hungry took place in our country in a literary way, only out of a desire to kick the government once again, to create an extra tunnel under it. It’s scary to say, but it’s true: if it weren’t for the people’s disasters, thousands of intellectuals would be downright miserable people: how then can they sit down, protest, what can they shout and write about?”

In May 1918, Bunin and his wife barely escaped from hungry Moscow to Odessa, where they experienced a change in many authorities. In January 1920 they fled to Constantinople. In Russia, nothing held Bunin anymore - his parents died, his brother Yuli was dying, former friends became enemies or left the country even earlier. Leaving his homeland on the ship Sparta, overloaded with refugees, Bunin felt like the last inhabitant of the sunken Atlantis.

In the fall of 1920, Bunin arrived in Paris and immediately got to work. Ahead were 33 years of emigration, during which he created ten books of prose. Bunin’s old friend Zaitsev wrote: “Exile even did him good. It sharpened the sense of Russia, of irrevocability, and thickened the previously strong juice of his poetry.”

Europeans also learned about the emergence of a new talent.

In 1921, a collection of Bunin’s stories, “The Gentleman from San Francisco,” was published in French. The Paris press was filled with responses: “a real Russian talent”, “bleeding, uneven, but courageous and truthful”, “one of the greatest Russian writers”. Thomas Mann and Romain Rolland, who in 1922 first nominated Bunin as a candidate for the Nobel Prize, were delighted with the stories. However, the tone in the culture of that time was set by the avant-garde, with which the writer did not want to have anything in common.

He never became a world celebrity, but the emigration read him avidly. And how could one not burst into a nostalgic tear from these lines: “And a minute later, glasses and wine glasses, bottles with multi-colored vodkas, pink salmon, a dark-skinned balyk, a bleu with shells open on ice shards, an orange square Chester, a black shiny a lump of pressed caviar, a tub of champagne, white and sweaty from the cold... We started with pepper... "

The old feasts seemed even more abundant in comparison with the emigrants' scarcity. Bunin published a lot, but his existence was far from idyllic. Age was showing itself, the Parisian winter dampness caused attacks of rheumatism. He and his wife decided to go south for the winter and in 1922 they rented a villa in the town of Grasse with the pompous name “Belvedere”. There their guests were leading emigration writers - Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Zaitsev, Khodasevich and Nina Berberova.

Mark Aldanov and Bunin’s secretary, writer Andrei Tsvibak (Sedykh) lived here for a long time. Bunin willingly helped his fellow countrymen in need from his limited means. In 1926, the young writer Galina Kuznetsova came to visit him from Paris. Soon a romance began between them. Subtle, delicate, understanding everything, Vera Nikolaevna wanted to think that love experiences were necessary for her “Yan” for a new creative upsurge.

Soon the triangle in the Belvedere turned into a quadrangle - this happened when the writer Leonid Zurov, who settled in the Bunin house, began to court Vera Nikolaevna. The complex vicissitudes of their relationship became the topic of emigrant gossip and ended up on the pages of memoirs. Endless quarrels and reconciliations spoiled a lot of blood for all four, and even drove Zurov to madness. However, this “autumn romance,” which lasted for 15 years, inspired all of Bunin’s later work, including the novel “The Life of Arsenyev” and the collection of love stories “Dark Alleys.”

This would not have happened if Galina Kuznetsova had turned out to be an empty-headed beauty - she became a real assistant for the writer. In her “Grasse Diary” you can read: “I am happy that each chapter of his novel was previously, as it were, experienced by both of us in long conversations.” The romance ended unexpectedly - in 1942, Galina became interested in opera singer Marga Stepun. Bunin could not find a place for himself, exclaiming: “How she poisoned my life - she is still poisoning me!”

At the height of the novel, news came that Bunin had been awarded the Nobel Prize. The entire Russian emigration perceived it as their triumph. In Stockholm, Bunin was greeted by the king and queen, the descendants of Alfred Nobel, and dressed up society ladies. And he only looked at the deep white snow, which he had not seen since leaving Russia, and dreamed of running through it like a boy... At the ceremony, he said that for the first time in history the prize was awarded to an exile who did not have his country behind him. The country, through the mouth of its diplomats, persistently protested against awarding the prize to the “White Guard”.

The prize that year was 150 thousand francs, but Bunin very quickly distributed it to the petitioners. During the war, he hid in Grasse, where the Germans did not reach, several Jewish writers who were in danger of death. About that time he wrote: “We live badly, very badly. Well, we eat frozen potatoes. Or some water with something nasty floating in it, some kind of carrot. This is called soup... We live in a commune. Six persons. And no one has a penny to their name.” Despite the hardships, Bunin rejected all offers from the Germans to join them in their service. Hatred of Soviet power was temporarily forgotten - like other emigrants, he closely followed events at the front, moving flags on the map of Europe that hung in his office.

In the fall of 1944, France was liberated, and Bunin and his wife returned to Paris. In a wave of euphoria, he visited the Soviet embassy and said there that he was proud of his country's victory. The news spread that he drank to Stalin's health. Many Russian Parisians recoiled from him. But Soviet writers began visiting him, through whom proposals to return to the USSR were conveyed. They promised to provide him with royal conditions, better than those that Alexei Tolstoy had. The writer answered one of the tempters: “I have nowhere to return. There are no more places or people that I knew.”

The flirting of the Soviet government with the writer ended after the publication of his book “Dark Alleys” in New York. They were seen as almost pornography. He complained to Irina Odoevtseva: “I consider “Dark Alleys” the best thing I wrote, and they, idiots, think that I disgraced my gray hairs with them... The Pharisees do not understand that this is a new word, a new approach to life.” Life has set the record straight - the detractors have long been forgotten, and “Dark Alleys” remains one of the most lyrical books in Russian literature, a true encyclopedia of love.

In November 1952, Bunin wrote his last poem, and in May of the following year he made his last entry in his diary: “This is still amazing to the point of tetanus! In some, very short time, I will be gone - and the affairs and fates of everything, everything will be unknown to me!” At two o'clock in the morning from November 7 to 8, 1953, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died in a rented apartment in Paris in the presence of his wife and his last secretary, Alexei Bakhrakh.

He worked until last days- The manuscript of a book about Chekhov remained on the table. All major newspapers published obituaries, and even the Soviet Pravda published a short message: “The emigre writer Ivan Bunin died in Paris.” He was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, and seven years later Vera Nikolaevna found her final refuge next to him. By that time, Bunin’s works, after 40 years of oblivion, began to be published again in his homeland. His dream came true - his compatriots were able to see and recognize the Russia he saved, which had long since sunk into history.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin can rightfully be considered one of the largest writers and poets of Russia of the 20th century. He received worldwide recognition for his works, which became classics during his lifetime.

A short biography of Bunin will help you understand what life path passed this outstanding writer, and for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

This is all the more interesting because great people motivate and inspire the reader to new achievements.

Brief biography of Bunin

Conventionally, the life of our hero can be divided into two periods: before emigration, and after. After all, it was the Revolution of 1917 that drew a red line between the pre-revolutionary existence of the intelligentsia and the Soviet system that replaced it. But first things first.

Childhood, youth and education

Ivan Bunin was born into a simple noble family on October 10, 1870. His father was a poorly educated landowner who graduated from only one class of gymnasium. He was distinguished by a cool disposition and extreme energy.

Ivan Bunin

The mother of the future writer, on the contrary, was a very meek and pious woman. Perhaps it was thanks to her that little Vanya was very impressionable and began to explore the spiritual world early.

Bunin spent most of his childhood in the Oryol province, which was surrounded by picturesque landscapes.

Yours elementary education Ivan got home. Studying the biographies of outstanding personalities, one cannot help but notice the fact that the vast majority of them received their first education at home.

In 1881, Bunin managed to enter the Yeletsk gymnasium, which he never graduated from. In 1886 he returned to his home again. The thirst for knowledge does not leave him, and thanks to his brother Julius, who graduated from the university with honors, he is actively working on self-education.

Personal life, family, children

What is noteworthy in Bunin’s biography is that he was constantly unlucky with women. His first love was Varvara, but they never managed to get married due to various circumstances.

The writer’s first official wife was 19-year-old Anna Tsakni. There was a rather cold relationship between the spouses, and it could be called more of a forced friendship than love. Their marriage lasted only 2 years, and their only son Kolya died of scarlet fever.

The writer’s second wife was 25-year-old Vera Muromtseva. However, this marriage also turned out to be unhappy. Having learned that her husband was cheating on her, Vera left Bunin, although she later forgave everything and returned.

Literary activity

Ivan Bunin wrote his first poems in 1888 at the age of seventeen. A year later, he decides to move to Orel and gets a job as editor of a local newspaper.

It was at this time that he began to write many poems, which would later form the basis of the book “Poems”. After the publication of this work, he first received some literary fame.

But Bunin does not stop, and a few years later the collections of poems “Under the Open Air” and “Falling Leaves” were published from his pen. Ivan Nikolaevich's popularity continues to grow and over time he manages to meet such outstanding and recognized masters of words as Gorky, Tolstoy and Chekhov.

These meetings turned out to be significant in Bunin’s biography, and left an indelible impression in his memory.

A little later, the collections of stories “Antonov Apples” and “Pines” appeared. Of course short biography does not imply a complete list of Bunin’s extensive works, so we will make do with mentioning key works.

In 1909, the writer was awarded the title of honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Life in exile

The Bolshevik ideas of the 1917 revolution, which swallowed up all of Russia, were alien to Ivan Bunin. As a result of this, he leaves his homeland forever, and his further biography consists of countless wanderings and trips around the world.

While in a foreign land, he continues to work actively and writes some of his best works - “Mitya’s Love” (1924) and “Sunstroke” (1925).

It was thanks to “The Life of Arsenyev” that in 1933 Ivan became the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Naturally, this can be considered the peak of Bunin’s creative biography.

The prize was presented to the writer by the Swedish King Gustav V. The laureate was also issued a check for 170,330 Swedish kronor. He gave part of his fee to needy people who found themselves in difficult life situations.

Last years and death

Towards the end of his life, Ivan Alekseevich was often sick, but this did not stop him from working. He had a goal - to create a literary portrait of A.P. Chekhov. However, this idea remained unrealized due to the death of the writer.

Bunin died in Paris on November 8, 1953. An interesting fact is that until the end of his days he remained a stateless person, being, in fact, a Russian exile.

He never managed to fulfill the main dream of the second period of his life - returning to Russia.

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First Russian writer, who received the Nobel Prize - Bunin. For what work did he receive it? This is the question all fans ask. Russian literature. It is worth noting that the formulation of the Nobel Committee, as a rule, does not include the name of a specific novel or collection of stories; the prize is given in aggregate for all creativity. But it is still possible to determine which work made the greatest impression on the jury.

Writer Bunin

Bunin received the Nobel Prize. For which work, we will tell you in this article. For now, let’s dwell on the biography of the prose writer.

The writer was born in Voronezh in 1870. He came from an impoverished noble family. Therefore, I was forced to start an independent life early in order to earn money. He became a journalist, worked for newspapers, and moved around Russia a lot.

The writer’s first publication was the poem “Over the Grave of S. Ya. Nadson,” which was published in 1887. Four years later in Orel, Bunin released his first collection.

Recognition came to the writer at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1903, he was awarded the Pushkin Prize for his book “Falling Leaves” and his translation of “The Song of Hiawatha.”

Writer's creativity

During the Civil War, Bunin left the country. In 1920 he emigrated to France. It was in emigration that he created his most significant prose works. First of all, these are novels and short stories.

It is worth especially highlighting his stories “Antonov Apples”, “Sukhodol”, “Mr. from San Francisco”, “ Easy breathing", a collection of short stories "Dark Alleys", a novel "The Life of Arsenyev", diary entries "Cursed Days".

Bunin died in 1953. Was buried at the famous Paris cemetery Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois. He was 83 years old.

Nomination for the Nobel Prize

For the first time in the early 20s, Bunin was nominated for the Nobel Prize. For what work he received it, we’ll figure it out later. For now, let us note an important figure who stood at the origins of the Nobel “Russian project”. This is the Russian writer Mark Aldanov, who noted in one of the questionnaires that the most influential domestic writers in exile are Bunin, Merezhkovsky and Kuprin. He proposed to nominate them jointly, thus raising the prestige of Russian literature as a whole.

With such a proposal, he turned to the French classic. He agreed to support Bunin, but came out categorically against Merezhkovsky’s candidacy. Moreover, Rolland admitted that if we were to evaluate all Russian writers of that time, he would include Maxim Gorky in this list.

As a result, the following trio were sent to the committee - Bunin, Balmont and Gorky. Questions arose about each of the candidates; in the end, the Irish poet William Yates won in 1923.

Despite the failure, Russian emigrant writers did not give up their attempts to nominate Bunin for the Nobel Prize. The same Aldanov in 1930 negotiated this with the classic of German literature Thomas Mann. Mann admitted that it was difficult to make a choice between Bunin and A. He also noted that if there was a German on the list of candidates, he would give his vote to him.

Awarding the Prize

As a result, Ivan Bunin received the Nobel Prize in 1933. There were 27 names on the list of nominees that year. Including Maxim Gorky, Frenchman Paul Valery, Spaniard Jose Ortega y Gasset, Czech Karl Capek.

His wife Vera Muromtseva was the first to learn this news. She wrote in her memoirs that a telegram from a Swedish translator was brought to their villa, which clarified Bunin’s nationality. The prose writer answered - “Russian exile.” In the afternoon, the husband and wife went to the cinema. Right during the session, they were found by Leonid Zurov, who asked the writer to urgently return home. Muromtseva herself received the call from Stockholm. The connection was very poor, but she was able to make out the main words - “Your husband is in literature.” A journalist and photographers immediately arrived to see Bunin. One of their friends recalled that the family was experiencing financial difficulties at that time, so the Bunins could not even pay for the work of the couriers who constantly brought congratulatory telegrams.

What was the prize awarded for?

When answering the question of why Bunin received the Nobel Prize, one should turn to the original source. This official text It notes that the award was awarded to the writer for the strict skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose.

This decision of the Nobel Committee caused mixed assessments. If Rachmaninov sincerely congratulated the writer, then Tsvetaeva openly stated that Gorky or Merezhkovsky deserved this prize more than Bunin.

Then everyone began to wonder for what work Bunin received the Nobel Prize. Among all his diversity of creativity, most stopped at the novel “The Life of Arsenyev”.

The award itself took place in December 1933 in Stockholm. In his Nobel speech the writer noted that this is the first time the prize has been awarded to a writer in exile. Bunin received a medal and diploma from the hands of the Swedish king Gustav V. He also received a check for 715 thousand Swiss francs. He donated part of this money to those in need. Bunin admitted that in the very first days after receiving the prize he received about two thousand letters from people who found themselves in difficult life and financial situations. As a result, he gave them about 120 thousand francs.

Bunin's main novel

Answering the question about what work Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize for, most are inclined to his novel “The Life of Arsenyev.” This work is written in five books. Mostly in 1929. Wherein individual chapters were published back in 1927 in the Rossiya newspaper, which was published in France. The novel was published as a separate edition in 1930.

After Ivan Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize, the majority decided that this recognition was primarily associated with this novel.

Creation of a novel

Bunin began writing this novel back in Grasse in 1927. Galina Kuznetsova, who helped him work on the drafts, recalls that he was literally torn over this text. I rewrote each chapter multiple times, polishing everything to perfection.

There was a lot of autobiography in the novel. For example, talking about an episode in which the main character, as a teenager, falls in love with a girl named Ankhen, the writer began to remember his neighbor Sasha Rezvaya, because of whom teenage years I haven't slept for about a month.

The fourth part of the novel was completed in the summer of 1929. Bunin's publishers were ready to print the work even in unfinished form, they rated it so highly. But Bunin did not agree. Work on the fifth and final part was difficult. Bunin wrote for 12 hours straight. He was completely immersed in memories and, according to Kuznetsova, at these moments he looked like a yogi or a hermit.

Plot of the novel

Bunin - first of all, for the novel "The Life of Arsenyev". The narration is told on behalf of Alexey Arsenyev, who recalls his childhood and youth.

Arsenyev was born in the small village of Kamenka, which was located in central Russia. His first memories are associated with endless snow fields and the smell of summer grass. He had older brothers and sisters.

Over time, the boy gets a teacher, Baskakov. He prepares Alexey to enter the gymnasium. But Baskakov does not show much zeal; after teaching the boy to write and read, he considers his mission accomplished. Instead of preparing Arsenyev for exams, he tells him about his life, reads about Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe.

But still, the talented Alexey enters the gymnasium without any problems. Studying comes easily to him, which cannot be said about moving to another city and living away from his family. He wanders alone for hours around the city and begins to write poetry.

A big shock for him is the arrest of his brother Georgy, who joined the Narodnaya Volya. He is expelled from the capital for three years to an estate in Baturino, where by that time all the Arsenyevs had moved. Alexey also comes there, having nevertheless dropped out of the gymnasium.

Creative success

The first creative successes came to young Arsenyev at the age of 15. His poems appear in newspapers. Afterwards, a difficult period of his life begins, which Alexey himself characterizes as years of wandering and homelessness.

He leaves to travel all over the country. Lives in Kharkov, Crimea, Kyiv, Kursk. He doesn’t stay everywhere for long; he stays only in Orel. At the editorial office of the local newspaper "Golos" Arsenyev meets Lika and receives an offer of long-term cooperation along with an advance payment.

Lika conquers Arsenyev. The girl is interested in theater and plays musical instruments. True, her father immediately warns young man that she has a changeable character. But their first winter together passes serenely.

Then separation comes, which Alexei experiences very hard. He is drawn to wander again. He moves to St. Petersburg, then to Vitebsk, Smolensk. Deciding to return to Orel, he sends a telegram to Lika, she meets him on the platform.

Idyll of lovers

An idyll ensues between the lovers again. They leave for a small town in Little Russia. Arsenyev gets a lucrative position, but he often has to go on business trips. But he constantly meets interesting people. The main character constantly needs Lika's love, but at the same time strives to maintain independence and freedom.

Over time, the girl begins to feel that Arsenyev is gradually moving away from her. Then she leaves him a goodbye note and disappears from his life. For the first few days after her departure, the young man is between life and death, ready to commit suicide. Doesn't leave home, quits work. All attempts to find Lika are unsuccessful. Her father reports that his daughter strictly forbade anyone to talk about her whereabouts.

In a depressed state, Arsenyev returns to his family in Baturino. He waits all winter for at least some news from Lika, and in the spring he learns that she died of pneumonia. Her last will was a request not to inform Arsenyev about her death for as long as possible.

The meaning of the novel

For which work Ivan Bunin received the Nobel Prize is now obvious. The novel "The Life of Arsenyev" is called by many the journey of the soul of a hero and poet who acutely perceived the world around him. Increased sensitivity to life is one of the main distinctive features Main character.

At the same time, literary scholars note that in the novel one can trace not only the process of growing up of the hero, but also the formation of the author. Speaking about the main female character - Lika, critics noted in her not so much the woman who influenced Arsenyev, but rather his muse.

Now that we know why Bunin was given the Nobel Prize, everyone who has not already done so should read this novel.