For which Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize. "Icy Night"

Portrait of Ivan Bunin. Leonard Turzhansky. 1905

♦ Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born into an old noble family in the city of Voronezh, where he lived the first few years of his life. Later the family moved to the Ozerki estate (now Lipetsk region). At the age of 11 he entered the Yeletsk district gymnasium, but at the age of 16 he was forced to stop studying. The reason for this was the ruin of the family. The fault of which, by the way, was the excessive spending of his father, who managed to leave both himself and his wife penniless. As a result, Bunin continued his education on his own, although his older brother Yuli, who graduated from the university with flying colors, went through the entire gymnasium course with Vanya. They studied languages, psychology, philosophy, social and natural sciences. It was Julius who provided big influence on the formation of Bunin’s tastes and views. He read a lot, studied foreign languages and already at an early age showed his talents as a writer. However, he was forced to work for several years as a proofreader at Orlovsky Vestnik in order to feed his family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nobel Prize

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

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

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

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

Bunin and his women

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

I wanted to shout after:

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

But for a woman there is no past:

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

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

It would be nice to buy a dog.

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

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

I catch the joy of life in everything -

IN starry sky, in flowers, in scents...

But I love you more tenderly.

I'm happy only with you alone,

And no one will replace you:

You are the only one who knows and loves me,

And one understands why!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first Russian Nobel laureate Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is called a jeweler of words, a prose writer, a genius Russian literature And the brightest representative Silver Age. Literary critics agree that Bunin’s works have a kinship with paintings, and in their worldview, Ivan Alekseevich’s stories and tales are similar to paintings.

Childhood and youth

Contemporaries of Ivan Bunin claim that the writer felt a “breed”, an innate aristocracy. There is nothing to be surprised: Ivan Alekseevich is a representative of the oldest noble family, dating back to the 15th century. The Bunin family coat of arms is included in the armorial of the noble families of the Russian Empire. Among the writer’s ancestors is the founder of romanticism, a writer of ballads and poems.

Ivan Alekseevich was born in October 1870 in Voronezh, in the family of a poor nobleman and petty official Alexei Bunin, married to his cousin Lyudmila Chubarova, a meek but impressionable woman. She bore her husband nine children, four of whom survived.

The family moved to Voronezh 4 years before Ivan’s birth to educate their eldest sons Yuli and Evgeniy. We settled in a rented apartment on Bolshaya Dvoryanskaya Street. When Ivan was four years old, his parents returned to the Butyrki family estate in the Oryol province. Bunin spent his childhood on the farm.

The love of reading was instilled in the boy by his tutor, a student at Moscow University, Nikolai Romashkov. At home, Ivan Bunin studied languages, focusing on Latin. The first books the future writer read independently were “The Odyssey” and a collection of English poems.

In the summer of 1881, his father brought Ivan to Yelets. The youngest son passed the exams and entered the 1st grade of the men's gymnasium. Bunin liked to study, but this did not concern the exact sciences. In a letter to his older brother, Vanya admitted that he considered the math exam “the worst.” After 5 years, Ivan Bunin was expelled from the gymnasium in the middle of the school year. A 16-year-old boy came to his father’s Ozerki estate for the Christmas holidays, but never returned to Yelets. For failure to appear at the gymnasium, the teachers' council expelled the guy. Further education Ivan's older brother Julius took care of him.

Literature

The creative biography of Ivan Bunin began in Ozerki. On the estate, he continued work on the novel “Passion”, which he began in Yelets, but the work did not reach the reader. But the poem of the young writer, written under the impression of the death of his idol - the poet Semyon Nadson - was published in the magazine "Rodina".

On his father's estate, with the help of his brother, Ivan Bunin prepared for the final exams, passed them and received a matriculation certificate.

From the autumn of 1889 to the summer of 1892, Ivan Bunin worked in the Orlovsky Vestnik magazine, where his stories, poems and literary critical articles were published. In August 1892, Julius called his brother to Poltava, where he gave Ivan a job as a librarian in the provincial government.

In January 1894, the writer visited Moscow, where he met a like-minded person. Like Lev Nikolaevich, Bunin criticizes urban civilization. In the stories “Antonov Apples”, “Epitaph” and “ New road“Nostalgic notes for the passing era are discerned, and regret for the degenerating nobility is felt.

In 1897, Ivan Bunin published the book “To the End of the World” in St. Petersburg. A year earlier, he translated Henry Longfellow's poem The Song of Hiawatha. Poems by Alcay, Saadi, Adam Mickiewicz and others appeared in Bunin's translation.

In 1898 it was published in Moscow poetry collection Ivan Alekseevich “Under the Open Air”, warmly received literary critics and readers. Two years later, Bunin presented poetry lovers with a second book of poems, “Falling Leaves,” which strengthened the author’s authority as a “poet of the Russian landscape.” The St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences awarded Ivan Bunin the first Pushkin Prize in 1903, followed by the second.

But in the poetic community, Ivan Bunin earned a reputation as an “old-fashioned landscape painter.” At the end of the 1890s, “fashionable” poets became favorites, bringing the “breath of city streets” into Russian lyrics, and with their restless heroes. in a review of Bunin’s collection “Poems,” he wrote that Ivan Alekseevich found himself on the sidelines “from the general movement,” but from the point of view of painting, his poetic “canvases” reached the “end points of perfection.” Critics cite the poems “I Remember a Long Winter Evening” and “Evening” as examples of perfection and adherence to the classics.

Ivan Bunin the poet does not accept symbolism and looks critically at revolutionary events 1905–1907, calling himself “a witness of the great and the vile.” In 1910, Ivan Alekseevich published the story “The Village,” which laid the foundation for “a whole series of works that sharply depict the Russian soul.” The continuation of the series is the story “Sukhodol” and the stories “Strength”, “ A good life", "Prince among princes", "Lapti".

In 1915, Ivan Bunin was at the peak of his popularity. His famous stories “The Master from San Francisco”, “The Grammar of Love”, “Easy Breathing” and “Chang’s Dreams” were published. In 1917, the writer left revolutionary Petrograd, avoiding the “terrible proximity of the enemy.” Bunin lived in Moscow for six months, from there in May 1918 he left for Odessa, where he wrote the diary “Cursed Days” - a furious denunciation of the revolution and Bolshevik power.

It is dangerous for a writer who so vehemently criticizes the new government to remain in the country. In January 1920, Ivan Alekseevich left Russia. He leaves for Constantinople, and in March ends up in Paris. A collection of short stories entitled “Mr. from San Francisco” was published here, which the public greeted enthusiastically.

Since the summer of 1923, Ivan Bunin lived in the Belvedere villa in ancient Grasse, where he was visited. During these years, the stories “Initial Love”, “Numbers”, “Rose of Jericho” and “Mitya’s Love” were published.

In 1930, Ivan Alekseevich wrote the story “The Shadow of a Bird” and completed the most significant work, created in exile, is the novel “The Life of Arsenyev.” The description of the hero’s experiences is covered with sadness about the departed Russia, “which perished before our eyes in such a magical short term».

In the late 1930s, Ivan Bunin moved to the Villa Zhannette, where he lived during the Second World War. The writer worried about the fate of his homeland and joyfully greeted the news of the slightest victory Soviet troops. Bunin lived in poverty. He wrote about his difficult situation:

“I was rich - now, by the will of fate, I suddenly became poor... I was famous throughout the world - now no one in the world needs me... I really want to go home!”

The villa was dilapidated: the heating system did not function, there were interruptions in electricity and water supply. Ivan Alekseevich spoke in letters to friends about the “constant famine in the caves.” In order to get at least a small amount of money, Bunin asked a friend who had left for America to publish the collection “Dark Alleys” on any terms. The book in Russian with a circulation of 600 copies was published in 1943, for which the writer received $300. The collection includes the story “Clean Monday”. Ivan Bunin’s last masterpiece, the poem “Night,” was published in 1952.

Researchers of the prose writer's work have noticed that his stories and stories are cinematic. For the first time, a Hollywood producer spoke about film adaptations of Ivan Bunin’s works, expressing a desire to make a film based on the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco.” But it ended with a conversation.

In the early 1960s, Russian directors drew attention to the work of his compatriot. A short film based on the story “Mitya’s Love” was directed by Vasily Pichul. In 1989, the film “Non-Urgent Spring” was released. story of the same name Bunina.

In 2000, the biographical film “His Wife’s Diary,” directed by the director, was released, which tells the story of relationships in the prose writer’s family.

The premiere of the drama “Sunstroke” in 2014 caused a stir. The film is based on the story of the same name and the book “Cursed Days.”

Nobel Prize

Ivan Bunin was first nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1922. The Nobel Prize laureate worked on this. But then the prize was given to the Irish poet William Yates.

In the 1930s, Russian emigrant writers joined the process, and their efforts were crowned with victory: in November 1933, the Swedish Academy awarded Ivan Bunin a prize for literature. The address to the laureate said that he deserved the award for “recreating in prose a typical Russian character.”

Ivan Bunin quickly spent the 715 thousand francs of his prize. In the very first months, he distributed half of it to those in need and to everyone who turned to him for help. Even before receiving the award, the writer admitted that he had received 2,000 letters asking for financial help.

3 years after receiving the Nobel Prize, Ivan Bunin plunged into habitual poverty. Until the end of his life he never had own home. Bunin best described the state of affairs in a short poem “The Bird Has a Nest,” which contains the lines:

The beast has a hole, the bird has a nest.
How the heart beats, sadly and loudly,
When I enter, being baptized, into someone else's rented house
With his already old knapsack!

Personal life

The young writer met his first love when he worked at Orlovsky Vestnik. Varvara Pashchenko, a tall beauty in pince-nez, seemed too arrogant and emancipated to Bunin. But soon he found an interesting interlocutor in the girl. A romance broke out, but Varvara’s father did not like the poor young man with vague prospects. The couple lived without a wedding. In his memoirs, Ivan Bunin calls Varvara “the unmarried wife.”

After moving to Poltava and without that difficult relationships worsened. Varvara, a girl from a wealthy family, was fed up with her miserable existence: she left home, leaving Bunin a farewell note. Soon Pashchenko became the wife of actor Arseny Bibikov. Ivan Bunin had a hard time with the breakup; his brothers feared for his life.

In 1898, in Odessa, Ivan Alekseevich met Anna Tsakni. She became Bunin's first official wife. The wedding took place that same year. But the couple did not live together for long: they separated two years later. The marriage produced the writer’s only son, Nikolai, but in 1905 the boy died of scarlet fever. Bunin had no more children.

The love of Ivan Bunin’s life is his third wife Vera Muromtseva, whom he met in Moscow, on literary evening in November 1906. Muromtseva, a graduate of the Higher Women's Courses, was fond of chemistry and spoke three languages ​​fluently. But Vera was far from literary bohemia.

The newlyweds got married in exile in 1922: Tsakni did not give Bunin a divorce for 15 years. He was the best man at the wedding. The couple lived together until Bunin's death, although their life could not be called cloudless. In 1926, rumors about a strange love triangle appeared among the emigrants: a young writer Galina Kuznetsova lived in the house of Ivan and Vera Bunin, for whom Ivan Bunin had far from friendly feelings.

Kuznetsova is called the writer’s last love. She lived in the villa of the Bunins for 10 years. Ivan Alekseevich experienced a tragedy when he learned about Galina’s passion for the sister of the philosopher Fyodor Stepun, Margarita. Kuznetsova left Bunin’s house and went to Margot, which became the reason for the writer’s protracted depression. Friends of Ivan Alekseevich wrote that Bunin at that time was on the verge of madness and despair. He worked day and night, trying to forget his beloved.

After breaking up with Kuznetsova, Ivan Bunin wrote 38 short stories, included in the collection “Dark Alleys”.

Death

In the late 1940s, doctors diagnosed Bunin with pulmonary emphysema. At the insistence of doctors, Ivan Alekseevich went to a resort in the south of France. But my health did not improve. In 1947, 79-year-old Ivan Bunin last time spoke to an audience of writers.

Poverty forced him to turn to Russian emigrant Andrei Sedykh for help. He obtained a pension for a sick colleague from the American philanthropist Frank Atran. Until the end of Bunin’s life, Atran paid the writer 10 thousand francs monthly.

In the late autumn of 1953, Ivan Bunin's health deteriorated. He didn't get out of bed. Shortly before his death, the writer asked his wife to read the letters.

On November 8, the doctor confirmed the death of Ivan Alekseevich. Its cause was cardiac asthma and pulmonary sclerosis. The Nobel laureate was buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery, the place where hundreds of Russian emigrants found rest.

Bibliography

• "Antonov apples"
• "Village"
• "Sukhodol"
• "Easy breath"
• "Chang's Dreams"
• "Lapti"
• "Grammar of Love"
• "Mitya's love"
• "Cursed Days"
• "Sunstroke"
• "The Life of Arsenyev"
• "Caucasus"
• "Dark alleys"
• "Cold autumn"
• "Numbers"
• "Clean Monday"
• "The Case of Cornet Elagin"

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 field silence,” recalled later writer about the beginning of my biography - and 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 heard a mile away the whistle of a marmot in an evening field, I got drunk smelling the smell of lily of the valley or 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 always remembered the delight with which he walked from the post office with new issue 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 any newfangled trends, remaining faithful to the traditions of the 19th 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 young man 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 a literary evening with the writer Zaitsev, 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.

IN Honeymoon they went 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 a telegram arrived with congratulations to Ivan Alekseevich in connection with his election to academician belles lettres, - said Vera Bunina, - the Bibikovs dined 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 have been directly the most unfortunate people: How then can we sit down, protest, what should we 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. old friend Bunin 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 carried away opera singer Margoy 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, whom 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. Hate for Soviet power was temporarily forgotten - like other emigrants, he closely followed the 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 visits to him began Soviet writers, through which proposals to return to the USSR were transmitted. 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, 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 next year did last entry in the 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 short message: “Emigrant writer Ivan Bunin died in Paris.” He was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, and seven years later he was found next to him last resort Vera Nikolaevna. 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 was born on October 10 (22), 1870 in Voronezh into an old impoverished noble family. The future writer spent his childhood on the family estate - on the Butyrki farm in the Yelets district of the Oryol province, where the Bunins moved in 1874. In 1881 he was enrolled in the first class of the Yelets gymnasium, but did not complete the course, expelled in 1886 for failure to appear from vacation and non-payment of tuition. Return from Yelets I.A. Bunin had to move to a new place - to the Ozerki estate in the same Yeletsky district, where the whole family moved in the spring of 1883, fleeing ruin from the sale of land in Butyrki. He received further education at home under the guidance of his older brother Yuli Alekseevich Bunin (1857-1921), an exiled populist from the Black Revolution, who forever remained one of the closest to I.A. Bunin people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. Born October 10 (22), 1870 in Voronezh - died November 8, 1953 in Paris. Russian writer, poet, honorary academician St. Petersburg Academy Sciences (1909), the first Russian laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1933).

Ivan Bunin was born on October 22, 1870 into an old noble family in Voronezh. Since 1867, Bunin's family rented housing in the Germanovskaya estate (Revolution Ave., 3), where he was born and lived the first three years of his life future writer. Father - Alexey Nikolaevich Bunin (1827-1906), was an officer in his youth, mother - Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Bunina (née Chubarova; 1835-1910).

IN further family moved to the Ozerki estate in the Oryol province (now Lipetsk region). Until the age of 11, he was raised at home, in 1881 he entered the Yeletsk district gymnasium, in 1886 he returned home and continued his education under the guidance of his older brother Julius. I did a lot of self-education, fascinated by reading world and domestic literary classics. At the age of 17 he began to write poetry, and in 1887 he made his debut in print. In 1889 he moved to Oryol and went to work as a proofreader for the local newspaper Oryol Vestnik. By this time, he had a long relationship with an employee of this newspaper, Varvara Pashchenko, with whom, against the wishes of his relatives, he moved to Poltava (1892).

Collections “Poems” (Eagle, 1891), “Under the Open Air” (1898), “Leaf Fall” (1901).

“There was Russia, there was a great house, bursting with all sorts of belongings, inhabited by a powerful family, created by the blessed labors of many, many generations, consecrated by worship, the memory of the past and everything that is called cult and culture. What did they do with it? They paid for the overthrow the housekeeper with the complete destruction of literally the entire house and unheard of fratricide, all that nightmarishly bloody farce, the monstrous consequences of which are incalculable... The planetary villain, overshadowed by a banner with a mocking call for freedom, brotherhood, equality, sat high on the neck of the Russian “savage” and called him to the dirt trample on conscience, shame, love, mercy... A degenerate, a moral idiot from birth, Lenin showed the world just at the height of his activity something monstrous, amazing, he ruined the greatest country in the world and killed millions of people, and in broad daylight they argue: he is a benefactor of humanity or not?"

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933 for "the rigorous mastery with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose."

He spent the Second World War (from October 1939 to 1945) in the rented villa “Jeannette” in Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes department).

Worked hard and fruitfully literary activity, becoming one of the main figures of the Russian Abroad.

While in exile, Bunin wrote his best works, such as: “Mitya’s Love” (1924), “Sunstroke” (1925), “The Case of Cornet Elagin” (1925), and, finally, “The Life of Arsenyev” (1927-1929, 1933) and the cycle of stories “Dark Alleys” "(1938-40). These works became a new word both in Bunin’s work and in Russian literature in general. According to K. G. Paustovsky, “The Life of Arsenyev” is not only pinnacle piece Russian literature, but also “one of the most remarkable phenomena of world literature.”

According to the Chekhov Publishing House, recent months life Bunin worked on literary portrait A.P. Chekhov, the work remained unfinished (in the book: “Loopy 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. According to eyewitnesses, on the writer’s bed lay a volume of L.N. Tolstoy’s novel “Resurrection.” He was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery in France.

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 of Russian emigration 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.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin - the last Russian classic who captured Russia late XIX- beginning of the 20th century. “...One of the last rays of some wonderful Russian day,” wrote critic G. V. Adamovich about Bunin.