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

Born in Voronezh, where he lived the first three years of his life. Later the family moved to an estate near Yelets. Father - Alexey Nikolaevich Bunin, mother - Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Bunina (nee Chubarova). Until the age of 11, he was raised at home, in 1881 he entered the Yeletsk district gymnasium, in 1885 he returned home and continued his education under the guidance of his older brother Julius. At the age of 17 he began to write poetry, and in 1887 he made his debut in print. In 1889 he went to work as a proofreader for the local newspaper “ Oryol Bulletin" 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 - met Chekhov personally, before that they corresponded.

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

In 1899 he married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni (Kakni), the daughter of a Greek revolutionary. The marriage 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)

* Impoverishment noble estates (« Antonov apples", 1900)
* The cruel face of the village (“Village”, 1910, “Sukhodol”, 1911)
* Deadly oblivion moral principles life (“Mr. from San Francisco”, 1915).
* Sharp rejection of the October Revolution and the Bolshevik regime in the diary book “ Damned 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 short stories about love (“Mitya’s Love”, 1925; collection of stories “Dark Alleys”, 1943).
* Translated “The Song of Hiawatha” by the American poet G. Longfellow. It was first published in the newspaper “Orlovsky Vestnik” in 1896. At the end of the same year, the newspaper’s printing house published “The Song of Hiawatha” as a separate book.

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

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

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

Worked hard and fruitfully literary activity, having already confirmed in emigration the title of a great Russian writer and becoming one of the main figures of the Russian Abroad.

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

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

Years of life: from 10.10.1980 to 08.11.1953

Russian poet, prose writer, translator. Since 1920 he lived in exile. Nobel Prize Laureate. I. Bunin is characterized by following the traditions of Russian classical literature and deep rejection of the October Revolution.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born in Voronezh. The impoverished landowners Bunins belonged to a noble family. 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. His memories of childhood - from the age of seven, as Bunin wrote - are connected “with the field, with peasant huts” and their inhabitants. In his eleventh year he entered the Yelets Gymnasium. In the gymnasium he began to write poetry, imitating Lermontov. Bunin studied at the gymnasium for 4 years, further education received houses under the guidance of brother Yuri. In the autumn of 1889, he began working at the editorial office of the newspaper Orlovsky Vestnik. In 1890, his father finally went bankrupt (he had a weakness for cards and alcohol), and sold his estate in Ozerki. In the editorial office, Bunin met his first common-law wife (the girl’s parents were against marriage) - V.V. Pashchenko. At the end of August 1892, Bunin and Pashchenko moved to Poltava, where Bunin worked as a librarian of the zemstvo government, and then as a statistician in the provincial government. Bunin's poems and prose began to appear in "thick" magazines - "Bulletin of Europe", "World of God", " Russian wealth" - and attracted the attention of critics. In 1893-1894, Bunin, being a passionate admirer of L. Tolstoy, visited Tolstoyan colonies and met with Lev Nikolaevich himself. Bunin refused to further follow the path of “simplification,” but the artistic power of Tolstoy the prose writer forever remained an unconditional reference point for Bunin, as did the work of A.P. Chekhov. In 1895, Bunin’s common-law wife married his friend. Bunin left his service in Poltava and went to St. Petersburg, and then to Moscow. There he enters literary circles and meets almost everyone famous writers and poets. In 1897, the book “To the End of the World” was published, which brought the writer fame in the literary community. In 1998 in Odessa, Bunin married A. N. Tsakni, but the marriage was unhappy and short, they separated in 1900. Their son Kolya died on January 16, 1905. In 1899, Bunin visited Yalta, met with Chekhov, and met Gorky. Later, Gorky invited Bunin to collaborate with the publishing house "Znanie" and, despite the ideological dissimilarity of the writers, this cooperation continued until 1917. At the beginning of 1901, a collection of poems "Leaf Fall" was published, which caused numerous positive reviews critics. "Falling Leaves" and Longfellow's translation of "The Song of Hiawatha" were awarded the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1902, a collection of Bunin's works began to be published by Gorky's publishing house "Znanie". At this time the writer traveled a lot. In 1906, Bunin met V.N. Muromtseva, who became his common-law wife and then his legal wife (in 1922). In 1909, Bunin was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences. 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 published in collections: “Sukhodol,” “John the Sower,” “The Cup of Life,” “The Gentleman from San Francisco.” I. Bunin reacted sharply negatively to the revolution and After living in Moscow for the winter of 1917-1918, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna left first for Kyiv, then for Odessa. After long wanderings in 1920, the writer and his wife sailed to Constantinople, then to Paris. Bunin lived in France until his death. In the 20s and 30s the books “Rose of Jericho”, “Mitya’s Love”, collections of stories “Sunstroke” and “Tree of God” were published. And in 1930, the autobiographical novel “The Life of Arsenyev” was published. During the emigrant period, Bunin was actively involved in the life of Russian Paris: he headed the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists from 1920, spoke with appeals and appeals, and wrote a regular newspaper in the newspaper “Vozrozhdenie” in 1925-1927. political and literary section, creates a semblance of a literary academy in Grasse. At this time, quite a lot began in Bunin's life. strange story. In 1927, Bunin met the Russian poetess G. Kuznetsova. Bunin was fascinated by the young woman, she, in turn, was delighted with him, their romance received wide publicity. However, Ivan Alekseevich managed to convince his wife that his relationship with Galina was purely platonic. It is unknown what motives motivated the writer’s wife, but Kuznetsova 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. In 1942, Kuznetsova left Bunin, carried away opera singer Margot Stepun, which inflicted a deep emotional wound on the writer. In 1933, Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize, as he believed, primarily for “The Life of Arsenyev.” When Bunin came to Stockholm to receive Nobel Prize, in Sweden they already recognized him by sight. The Russian emigration rejoiced, and in the USSR it was officially announced that awarding the prize to Bunin was “the machinations of imperialism.” From 1934 to 1936, Bunin's collected works were published in Germany. In October 1939, Bunin settled in the town of Grasse and lived here throughout the war. Here he wrote a book " Dark alleys". Under the Germans, Bunin did not publish anything (“Dark Alleys” was published in the USA), although he lived in great poverty and hunger. He treated the fascist regime with hatred, rejoiced at the victories of the Soviet and allied troops. The book “Dark Alleys” caused a mixed reaction. The writer , who considered the book the pinnacle of his creativity, was accused almost of pornography. After the war, Bunin expressed a desire to return to the USSR, which alienated many Russian emigrants. However, after the famous decree on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” (1946), which trampled on both. M. Zoshchenko, Bunin forever abandoned the intention of returning to his homeland. In recent years, Bunin was ill a lot, and yet he wrote a book of memoirs and worked on the book “About Chekhov,” which he did not manage to finish, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died on the night of November 8, 1953. in the arms of his wife in terrible poverty.

Regarding the October Revolution, Bunin wrote the following: “This spectacle was sheer horror for anyone who had not lost the image and likeness of God...”

The writer, lacking “practical ingenuity,” used the Nobel Prize extremely irrationally. Z. Shakhovskaya writes in her memoirs: “Having returned to France, Ivan Alekseevich... in addition to money, began to organize feasts, distribute “benefits” to emigrants, and donate funds to support various societies. Finally, on the advice of well-wishers, he invested the remaining amount in some “win-win business” and was left with nothing.”

The last entry in I. Bunin’s diary, dated May 2, 1953, 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!”

I. 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.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 22 (October 10, old style) 1870 in Voronezh into a noble family. The future writer spent his childhood on the Butyrka farm in Yelets district, Oryol province.

In 1881, Ivan Bunin entered the Yelets Gymnasium, but studied for only five years, since the family had no funds. His older brother Julius (1857-1921) helped him master the gymnasium curriculum.

Bunin wrote his first poem at the age of eight.

His first publication was the poem “Over the Grave of Nadson”, published in the Rodina newspaper in February 1887. During the year, several poems by Bunin appeared in the same publication, as well as the stories “Two Wanderers” and “Nefedka”.

In September 1888, Bunin's poems appeared in Books of the Week, where works by writers Leo Tolstoy and Yakov Polonsky were published.

In the spring of 1889, the writer’s independent life began - Bunin, following his brother Julius, moved to Kharkov. In the fall, he began working for the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper.

In 1891, his student book “Poems. 1887-1891” was published in the Oryol Bulletin supplement. At the same time, Ivan Bunin met Varvara Pashchenko, a newspaper proofreader, with whom they began to live in a civil marriage, without getting married, since Varvara’s parents were against this marriage.

In 1892 they moved to Poltava, where brother Yuliy 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. IN different time worked as a proofreader, statistician, librarian, and newspaper reporter.

In April 1894, the first prose work Bunin - the story "Village Sketch" (the title was chosen by the publishing house).

In January 1895, after his wife’s betrayal, Bunin left his service and moved first to St. Petersburg and then to Moscow. In 1898, he married Anna Tsakni, a Greek woman, the daughter of the revolutionary and emigrant Nikolai Tsakni. In 1900, the couple separated, and in 1905 their son Nikolai died.

In Moscow, the young writer met many famous poets and writers - Anton Chekhov, Valery Bryusov. After meeting Nikolai Teleshov, Bunin became a member of the Sreda literary circle. In the spring of 1899 in Yalta, he met Maxim Gorky, who later invited him to collaborate with the Znanie publishing house. Literary fame came to Ivan Bunin in 1900 after the publication of the story “Antonov Apples.”

In 1901, the Symbolist publishing house Scorpio published a collection of poems, Falling Leaves. For this collection and for the translation of the poem by the American romantic poet Henry Longfellow "The Song of Hiawatha" (1896) Russian Academy Sciences Ivan Bunin was awarded the Pushkin Prize.

In 1902, the publishing house "Znanie" published the first volume of the writer's works.

In 1906, Bunin met Vera Muromtseva, who came from a noble, professorial Moscow family, and became his wife. The Bunin couple traveled a lot. In 1907, the young couple went on a trip to the countries of the East - Syria, Egypt, Palestine. In 1910 they visited Europe and then to Egypt and Ceylon. From the autumn of 1912 to the spring of 1913 they were in Turkey and Romania, from 1913 to 1914 - in Capri in Italy.

In the fall of 1909, the Academy of Sciences awarded Bunin the second Pushkin Prize and elected him an honorary academician in the category of fine literature.

In the works written after the first Russian revolution of 1905, the theme of the drama of Russian historical fate became dominant. The stories "Village" (1910) and "Sukhodol" (1912) were a great success among readers.

In 1915-1916, collections of the writer’s stories “The Cup of Life” and “The Mister from San Francisco” were published. In the prose of these years, the writer’s understanding of the tragedy of the life of the world, of the doom and fratricidal nature of modern civilization is expanding.

To February and October revolutions 1917, Ivan Bunin was extremely hostile and perceived them as a disaster. The book of journalism “Cursed Days” (1918) became a diary of events in the life of the country and the thoughts of the writer at this time.

On May 21, 1918, he left Moscow for Odessa, and in February 1920 he emigrated first to the Balkans and then to France. In France, at first he lived in Paris, but in the summer of 1923 he moved to the Alpes-Maritimes and came to Paris only for some winter months.

Here he turned to intimate, lyrical memories of his youth. The novel "The Life of Arsenyev" (1930) seemed to close the cycle of artistic autobiographies related to the life of a Russian landed nobility. One of the central places in late creativity Bunin was occupied with the theme of fatal love-passion, expressed in the works “Mitya’s Love” (1925), “Sunstroke” (1927), and the cycle of short stories “Dark Alleys” (1943).

In 1927-1930, Bunin turned to the genre short story(“Elephant”, “Calf’s Head”, “Roosters”, etc.).

In 1933, he became the first Russian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the true artistic talent with which he recreated artistic prose typical Russian character."

In 1939, with the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), the Bunins settled in the south of France, in Grasse, at the Villa Jeannette, and in 1945 they returned to Paris.

IN last years life, the writer stopped publishing his works. While ill a lot and seriously, he wrote “Memoirs” (1950) and worked on the book “About Chekhov,” which was published posthumously in 1955 in New York.

In his “Literary Testament,” he asked 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.

On November 8, 1953, Ivan Bunin died in Paris. He was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois.

His wife Vera Muromtseva (1881-1961) left literary memories of the writer “The Life of Bunin” and “Conversations with Memory”.

In 1988, the Literary and Memorial Museum of I.A. Bunin was opened in Yelets; in 1991, the Ivan Bunin Literary and Memorial Museum was created in Orel.

In 2004, the annual literary Bunin Prize was established in Russia.

In 2006, a presentation of the first complete 15-volume collected works of Ivan Bunin in Russian took place in Paris, including three volumes of his correspondence and diaries, as well as the diaries of his wife Vera Muromtseva-Bunina and the writer’s friend Galina Kuznetsova.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin; Russia, Voronezh; 10.10.1870 – 08.11.1953

Ivan Bunin - writer, popular poet and prose writer, publicist and translator, who became the first Russian Nobel laureate. From his pen came a large number of poems, stories and stories in which he described the beauty native land. Based on many of Bunin's books, plays were staged and filmed. art films. And the writer himself constantly ranks high among.

Biography of Ivan Bunin

Ivan Bunin was born in the fall of 1870 in the city of Voronezh, where his family moved due to the fact that the older children needed to receive a quality education. His father was an impoverished nobleman whose family began in the fifteenth century. The story of Bunin as a future writer began with the fact that a love of literature was instilled in a little boy from childhood. Many years later he will remember how it was customary in his family to read in the evenings. Just as early future writer began to study foreign languages and fine arts.

When the future writer turned fourteen years old, Bunin’s biography took a sharp turn - by decision of his father, he entered the Yelets boys’ gymnasium. Throughout his studies, Ivan often changed places of residence, ranging from renting a room in the house of a local tradesman to a closet with a sculptor. As for the learning process itself, as the writer’s brother said, if you listen to Bunin, he did best in the humanities, in contrast to mathematics, the exam in which he was most afraid of. Five years later, in 1886, the future writer graduated from the Yelets gymnasium. This happened because during the holidays he moved to his parents, after which he decided not to return back to educational institution. For failure to appear after the holidays, the gymnasium management decided to expel Bunin. Then he began to study at home, giving all his strength humanities. Also in early age The author can be found in Bunin's poems about nature, and at the age of fifteen the young man created his first novel called “Hobbies”. However, Bunin’s work did not receive the proper response then, which is why he was denied publication. In 1887, the poet who was the idol of the young author, Semyon Nadson, dies. Bunin decides to write a poem in his honor, and it immediately appears on the page of the periodical.

Thanks to his brother, who began training Ivan, he was able to calmly pass the exams and receive his certificate. In 1889, Bunin went to work at the publishing house of the famous magazine “Orlovsky Vestnik”. There, Bunin's stories, critical notes and poems are not only published, but also receive many enthusiastic reviews. But three years later, together with his brother Yuli, Ivan decides to move to Poltava, where he begins to work as a librarian. In 1894, the aspiring writer came to Moscow for a while, where he met. At the same time, several stories and poems by Bunin were published, which describe the beauty of nature and the sadness that the noble era would soon end.

At twenty-seven years old, Ivan Alekseevich publishes a book entitled “To the End of the World.” Before that, he made his living mainly by translating popular foreign authors. This work by Bunin gained great popularity, and already in 1898 he published a collection of his poems. However, the traditionalism that seeps into the writer’s works was already slightly outdated for that era. Then he was replaced by symbolists who criticized Bunin's poetic verses. The same one, denying all revolutionary ideas, releases stories one after another that describe the Russian people in a harsh manner (“Village”, “Sukhodol”, etc.). Thanks to these works, he again becomes popular among readers. Over the next few years, new stories by Bunin were published, while the writer himself traveled a lot. This is due to the revolution in our country. So in 1917 he lived in Moscow, a year later in Odessa, and two years later he moved to Paris, where he experienced serious financial difficulties. For creating the traditional image of Russian people and Russian nature in 1933, Ivan Bunin, whose stories have long become popular outside his homeland, receives the Nobel Prize in Literature. He distributed half of the amount that was awarded along with the prize to the needy who asked him for help. Thus, already three years after the award was presented, we can read about Bunin that he again began to live quite poorly, trying to make money with the help of his stories. All this time he actively continues to study writing activity, while trying to keep track of what was happening in his homeland during World War II.

In the 40s, the writer’s health deteriorated greatly. Doctors found him serious illness lungs, and Bunin went for treatment to a resort in Southern France. However, he was never able to achieve a positive result. Since living in poverty in this state was quite difficult, the writer turned to his friend who lived in America for help. He was able to obtain the consent of a local philanthropist to pay a pension to Ivan Alekseevich. In the fall of 1953, the writer became significantly worse, and he could no longer move normally. In early November, Ivan Bunin died of cardiac arrest due to severe lung disease. The grave of the writer, like many other emigrants from Russia, is located in the small French cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois.