Childhood
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.
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 on his own were Homer’s “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. Ivan’s older brother Julius took over Ivan’s further education.
At the age of 19, he moved to Oryol, where he worked as a proofreader for a local newspaper. In 1891, his collection “Poems” was published, and then “Under the Open Air” and “Leaf Fall”, for which he was awarded the first Pushkin Prize in 1903. In 1895, Ivan Alekseevich met Chekhov, with whom he corresponded several times.
In the fall of 1886, the young man began writing the novel “Passion,” which he finished on March 26, 1887. The novel was not published.
Life and work of I. A. Bunin outline of literature
Life and work of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin.
Ivan Bunin was born into a poor noble family on October 10 (22), 1870. Then, in Bunin’s biography, he moved to an estate in the Oryol province near the city of Yelets.
Bunin spent his childhood in this very place, among the natural beauty of the fields.
Bunin's primary education was received at home. Then, in 1881, the young poet entered the Yelets gymnasium. However, without finishing it, he returned home in 1886. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin received further education thanks to his older brother Yuli, who graduated from the university with honors.
Bunin's poems were first published in 1888. The following year, Bunin moved to Orel, starting to work as a proofreader in a local newspaper. Bunin's poetry, collected in a collection called "Poems", became the first book published. Soon Bunin's work gained fame. Bunin's following poems were published in the collections “Under the Open Air” (1898), “Leaf Fall” (1901).
Meeting the greatest writers (Gorky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, etc.) leaves a significant imprint on Bunin’s life and work. Bunin's stories "Antonov Apples" and "Pines" are published. Bunin's prose was published in the Complete Works (1915).
The writer in 1909 became an honorary academician of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Bunin reacted rather harshly to the ideas of the revolution, and left Russia forever.
The biography of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin almost entirely consists of moves and travels (Europe, Asia, Africa). In exile, Bunin actively continued to engage in literary activities, writing his best works: “Mitya’s Love” (1924), “Sunstroke” (1925), as well as the main novel in the writer’s life, “The Life of Arsenyev” (1927-1929, 1933), which brought Bunin the Nobel Prize in 1933. In 1944, Ivan Alekseevich wrote the story “Clean Monday”.
Before his death, the writer was often ill, but at the same time he did not stop working and creating. In the last few months of his life, Bunin was busy working on a literary portrait of A.P. Chekhov, but the work remained unfinished
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died on November 8, 1953. He was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery in Paris.
The originality of the poetic world
Poetry occupies a significant place in the work of I. A. Bunin, although he gained fame as a prose writer. He claimed to be first and foremost a poet. It was with poetry that his path in literature began.
When Bunin turned 17, his first poem, “The Village Beggar,” was published in the Rodina magazine, in which the young poet described the state of the Russian village:
It's sad to see so much suffering
And longing and need in Rus'!
From the very beginning of his creative activity, the poet found his own style, his own themes, his own original manner. Many poems reflected the state of mind of young Bunin, his inner world, subtle and rich in shades of feelings. Smart, quiet lyrics were similar to a conversation with a close friend, but amazed contemporaries with high technique and artistry. Critics unanimously admired Bunin's unique gift for feeling the word, his mastery in the field of language. The poet drew many precise epithets and comparisons from works of folk art - both oral and written. K. Paustovsky greatly appreciated Bunin, saying that each of his lines was as clear as a string. Bunin began with civil poetry, writing about the difficult life of the people, and with all his soul he wished for change for the better. In the poem “Desolation,” the old house says to the poet:
I'm waiting for the cheerful sounds of the axe,
I'm waiting for the destruction of daring work,
Mighty hands and brave voices!
I'm waiting for life, even in brute force,
Blossomed again from the ashes of the grave.
In 1901, Bunin's first poetry collection, Falling Leaves, was published. It also included a poem of the same name. The poet says goodbye to childhood, the world of dreams. The homeland appears in the collection’s poems in wonderful pictures of nature, evoking a sea of feelings and emotions. The image of autumn is the most frequently encountered in Bunin’s landscape lyrics. The poet’s poetic creativity began with him, and until the end of his life this image illuminates his poems with a golden radiance. In the poem “Falling Leaves,” autumn “comes to life”:
The forest smells of oak and pine,
Over the summer it dried out from the sun,
And autumn is a quiet widow
Enters his motley mansion.
A. Blok wrote about Bunin that “few people know how to know and love nature,” and added that Bunin “claims one of the main places in Russian poetry.” A rich artistic perception of nature, the world and the people in it became a distinctive feature of both Bunin’s poetry and prose. Gorky compared Bunin the artist with Levitan in terms of his skill in creating landscapes.
Bunin lived and worked at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when modernist movements were rapidly developing in poetry. Many poets were engaged in word creation, looking for unusual forms to express their thoughts and feelings, which sometimes shocked readers. Bunin remained faithful to the traditions of Russian classical poetry, which were developed by Fet, Tyutchev, Baratynsky, Polonsky and others. He wrote realistic lyric poetry and did not strive to experiment with words. The riches of the Russian language and the events of reality were quite enough for the poet.
In his poems, Bunin tried to find the harmony of the world, the meaning of human existence. He affirmed the eternity and wisdom of nature, defined it as an inexhaustible source of beauty. Bunin's life is always inscribed in the context of nature. He was confident in the rationality of all living things and argued “that there is no nature separate from us, that every slightest movement of air is the movement of our own life.” Landscape lyrics gradually become philosophical. In a poem, the main thing for the author is thought. Many of the poet’s poems are devoted to the theme of life and death:
My spring will pass, and this day will pass,
But it's fun to wander around and know that everything passes,
Meanwhile, the happiness of living will never die,
While the dawn brings out the dawn above the earth
And young life will be born in its turn.
It is noteworthy that when revolutionary processes had already begun in the country, they were not reflected in Bunin’s poems. He continued the philosophical theme. It was more important for him to know not what, but why this or that happens to a person. The poet correlated the problems of our time with eternal categories - good, evil, life and death. Trying to find the truth, in his work he turns to the history of different countries and peoples. This is how poems about Mohammed, Buddha, and ancient deities arise. In the poem "Sabaoth" he writes:
The ancient words sounded dead.
The spring glow was on the slippery slabs -
And a menacing gray head
Flowed between the stars, surrounded by fogs.
The poet wanted to understand the general laws of development of society and the individual. He recognized earthly life as only a segment of the eternal life of the Universe. This is where the motives of loneliness and fate arise. Bunin foresaw the catastrophe of the revolution and perceived it as the greatest misfortune. The poet is trying to look beyond the boundaries of reality, to unravel the riddle of death, the gloomy breath of which is felt in many poems. His feeling of doom is caused by the destruction of the noble way of life, impoverishment and destruction of landowners' estates. Despite his pessimism, Bunin saw a solution in the merging of man with wise mother nature, in her peace and eternal beauty.
Personal life
The writer's half-child love was Emilia, the neighbors' young governess.
He devoted several chapters to the description of this feeling in The Life of Arsenyev. And his first common-law wife was Varya Pashchenko, the daughter of a fairly wealthy doctor, a graduate of the Yelets Gymnasium, and a proofreader for the Orlovsky Vestnik. She captivated 19-year-old Ivan with her intelligence and beauty. True, due to the fact that Paschenko’s parents were against the marriage, the couple never got married. At the end of August 1892, the newlyweds moved to Poltava. Here the elder brother Julius took Ivan to his council. He even came up with a position as a librarian for him, which left enough time for reading and traveling around the province.
After the wife got together with Bunin’s friend A.I. Bibikov, the writer left Poltava. For several years he led a hectic life, never staying anywhere for long.
I love him very much and appreciate him as an intelligent and good person, but we will never have a peaceful family life. It’s better, no matter how hard it is, for us to separate now than in a year or six months. All this inexpressibly depresses me, I lose both energy and strength. He constantly says that I belong to a vulgar environment, that I have ingrained bad tastes and habits - and this is all true, but again it’s strange to demand that I throw them away like old gloves... If you knew how I do this everything is hard!
In January 1894, Bunin visited Leo Tolstoy in Moscow. Echoes of Tolstoy's ethics and his criticism of urban civilization can be heard in Bunin's stories. The post-reform impoverishment of the nobility evoked nostalgic notes in his soul (“Antonov Apples”, “Epitaph”, “New Road”). Bunin was proud of his origins, but was indifferent to “blue blood,” and the feeling of social restlessness grew into the desire to “serve the people of the earth and the God of the universe, - God, whom I call Beauty, Reason, Love, Life and who penetrates into everything that exists.” The writer met his next muse, the Greek Anna Tsakni, the daughter of the Odessa owner of the Southern Review, in 1898. They got married, but the couple’s cohabitation did not work out.
He wanted to create in Moscow, but his wife decided to return to her native Odessa. When she, already pregnant, left, the writer suffered greatly. In 1900, their son Kolenka was born, who died at the age of 5 from scarlet fever.
The writer's next chosen one was Vera Muromtseva, a highly educated beauty, niece of the head of the State Duma.
The young people met in Moscow in 1906. Since Tsakni initially did not agree to give a divorce, they were able to get married only in 1922, and lived together for 46 years.
She called her husband Jan, loved him very much and even forgave his infidelity.
The writer's last lover was the Russian poetess Galina Kuznetsova. Their stormy romance began in 1926. A year later, the young passion left her husband and began to live with Bunin’s family, shocking the society of Russian emigrants. But in 1933, she gave those around her another surprise - she entered into a love affair with Margarita, the sister of the philosopher and literary critic Fyodor Stepunov. In connection with this turn of events, the writer, according to the recollections of contemporaries, was in a state of absolute despair.
Rise of literary fame
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. What is important in Bunin’s spiritual biography is the rapprochement during these years with the participants in the “environments” of the writer N.D. Teleshov and especially the meeting at the end of 1895 and the beginning of friendship with A.P. Chekhov. Bunin carried his admiration for Chekhov’s personality and talent throughout his life, dedicating his last book to him (the unfinished manuscript “About Chekhov” was published in New York in 1955, after the author’s death). At the beginning of 1901, the Moscow publishing house "Scorpion" published the poetry collection "Falling Leaves" - the result of Bunin's short collaboration with the Symbolists, which in 1903 brought the author, along with the translation of "The Song of Hiawatha", the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Acquaintance with Maxim Gorky in 1899 led I.A. Bunin in the early 1900s. to cooperate with the publishing house "Znanie". 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.
In the early 1910s. Bunin and his wife still travel a lot, visiting France, Algeria and Capri, Egypt and Ceylon. In December 1911, in Capri, the writer completed the autobiographical story “Sukhodol”, which, being published in “Bulletin of Europe” in April 1912, was a huge success among readers and critics.
On October 27-29 of the same year, the entire Russian public solemnly celebrated the 25th anniversary of I.A.’s literary activity. Bunin, and in 1915 in the St. Petersburg publishing house A.F. Marx published his complete works in six volumes.
In 1912-1914. Bunin took 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).
WORK OF IVAN ALEXEEVICH BUNIN
Ivan Bunin’s literary debut was the poem “Over Nadson’s Grave,” published in the St. Petersburg weekly magazine “Rodina” in one of the May issues of 1887. In the same publication, a few months later, the poem “The Village Beggar” and the stories “Two Wanderers” and “Nefedka” were published. The poet forever remembered that May morning when, having received a magazine with the first publication of his poem, he returned to Ozerki, “plucked dewy lilies of the valley through the forests and re-read his work every minute.” Bunin's first collection of poetry, “Poems of 1887-1891,” was published in 1891 as a supplement to the newspaper Orlovsky Vestnik. Here, five years later, Bunin’s talented translation into Russian of the poem “The Song of Hiawatha” by the American romantic poet G. Longfellow will be published. In the second half of the 1890s, the time came for the final formation of the writer’s artistic method. For I.A. It was important for Bunin, as a writer, to become close during these years with members of the Moscow literary circle “Sreda” N.D. Teleshov, literary and friendly relations with A.P. Chekhov, L.N. Tolstoy, D.N. Mamin - Sibiryak, A.I. Kuprin, L.N. Andreev, V.Ya. Bryusov. In 1897, the collection of stories “To the End of the World,” published in St. Petersburg, was well received by the literary community. The stories revealed the features of Bunin's writing style: simplicity and ease of style, elegance of style, vivid imagery and expressiveness. The relevance of the topic and the depth of the problems made Bunin's first collection a striking phenomenon in the literature of the turn of the century.
In 1898, a book of poems “Under the Open Air” was published in Moscow. Literary critic O.N. Mikhailov defined the essence of Bunin’s poetry as deeply national and revealing the fullness of the author’s views. In 1899, Ivan Bunin met Maxim Gorky. Gorky highly valued Bunin's talent and invited him to collaborate with the Znanie publishing house. In 1900, the story “Antonov Apples” was published. A.M. Gorky wrote in one of his letters: “And also thank you for “Apples”... Here Ivan Bunin sang like a young god. Beautiful, juicy, soulful.” The formation of the Bunin style was noted by A.P. Chekhov’s words about the story “Pines” (1902) are “very new, very fresh and very good.” In 1903, the Russian Academy of Sciences awarded Bunin the Pushkin Prize for his translation of G. Longfellow’s poem “The Song of Hiawatha” and the poetry collection “Falling Leaves.” In the fall of 1909, the writer received the second Pushkin Prize and was elected an honorary academician. In Bunin’s work of the 1900s, a peasant theme appears, and it becomes the main one in the works of this period: “Village” (1910), “Sukhodol”, “Zakhar Vorobyov” (1912), “Thin Grass” (1913), collections “John The Sower" (1913), "The Cup of Life" (1914). The story “The Village” depicted a terrifying picture of peasant life in the first decade of the twentieth century, the destruction of patriarchal foundations. Another significant work was the autobiographical story “Sukhodol”, published in the journal “Bulletin of Europe” in April 1912. The story was a huge success. The story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” (1915) became a real literary event in Russia. In this story, Bunin turns to symbolism for the first time, revealing the tragedy of life at the beginning of the century.
In 1920, the writer emigrated to France. In exile, after some literary silence, I.A. Bunin returns to creativity. During this period, he wrote works that brought worldwide recognition: “Mowers” (1921), “Sunstroke”, “The Case of Cornet Elagin” (1925), “Cursed Days” (1925), “God’s Tree”, “Snowdrop” (1927). Having absorbed the themes of the previous stage of creativity, they revealed a new facet of the writer’s artistic gift - a deep understanding of the philosophical problems of life and an awareness of the inextricable connection with the homeland. During these same years, separate publications were published: “The Rose of Jericho” (1924), “Mitya’s Love” (1925), “The Grammar of Love. Selected Stories" (1929), "God's Tree", "Shadow of the Bird" (1931). The most significant work of I. A. Bunin is the novel “The Life of Arsenyev.” The idea of writing it appeared in 1920, and the writer began working on it in 1927. The book incorporates themes that worried the writer throughout his entire career. The leitmotif of the novel was the irretrievably gone way of the era. The work tells about the development of the character and worldview of the main character Alexei Arsenyev over a quarter of a century. In the novel, Bunin delicately described the youth and youth of his generation. In 1933, the writer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for “The Life of Arsenyev.” The laureate’s diploma noted that the author “recreated a typical Russian character in artistic prose.” Bunin admired the writing talent of L.N. Tolstoy and, trying to reflect all the complexity and versatility of the personality of the great novelist, dedicated the philosophical and journalistic work “The Liberation of Tolstoy” (1937) to him. The collection “Dark Alleys” was prepared from 1937 to 1944. The author considered this cycle “the most perfect in craftsmanship.” In the last years of I.A.’s life. Bunin worked on the book “About Chekhov”. It remained unfinished. The unfinished manuscript was published by Vera Nikolaevna Bunina in 1956.
Life in exile and the Nobel Prize
Bunin perceived the October Revolution and Civil War as a catastrophe in the life of the country and his compatriots. From Petrograd he moved first to Moscow, then to Odessa. At the same time, he kept a diary in which he wrote a lot about the destructive power of the Russian revolution and the power of the Bolsheviks. Later, a book with these memories was published abroad under the title “Cursed Days.”
“Having drunk the cup of unspeakable mental suffering,” Bunin left Russia at the beginning of 1920.
Together with his wife, he sailed on a Greek ship from Odessa to Constantinople, from there - through Sofia and Belgrade - to Paris. At that time, Russian emigrant journalists and exiled writers lived in the French capital, so it was often called the “district of Russian literature.” Everything that remained in the USSR seemed alien and hostile to the writer. Abroad, he began to conduct social and political activities and soon became one of the main figures of the emigrant opposition. In 1920, Bunin became a member of the Parisian Union of Russian Writers and Journalists, wrote to the political and literary newspaper “Vozrozhdenie” and called for a fight against Bolshevism. At home, the writer was nicknamed a White Guard for his anti-Soviet position.
Abroad, Bunin began to publish collections of his pre-revolutionary works. These books were received warmly by European critics.
French monthly art and literature magazine La Nervie, December 1921:
Bunin is a real Russian talent, bleeding, uneven and at the same time courageous and big. His book contains several stories that are worthy of Dostoevsky in power
During the years of emigration, Bunin worked a lot, his books were published almost every year. He wrote the stories “Rose of Jericho”, “Mitya’s Love”, “Sunstroke”, “God’s Tree”. In his works, Bunin sought to combine poetic and prosaic language, so figurative background details occupied an important place in them. For example, in “Sunstroke” the author picturesquely described the white-hot Volga landscape.
In 1933, Ivan Bunin completed the most significant work of his foreign period of creativity - the novel “The Life of Arsenyev”. It was for this that in the same year Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The author's name became world famous, but his glory was overshadowed by the fact that in Soviet Russia this achievement was kept silent and his works were not published.
The funds received from the Swedish Academy did not make Bunin rich. He gave a significant part of the prize to those in need.
As soon as I received the bonus, I had to give away about 120,000 francs. Yes, I don’t know how to handle money at all. Now this is especially difficult. Do you know how many letters I received asking for help? In the shortest possible time, up to 2000 such letters arrived
Heyday of literary activity
One of the significant works of Bunin’s pre-revolutionary creativity is the story “The Village” (1910) , after the release of which Russian public thought asked the question: “To be or not to be Russia?” The poetic language of his first poems and stories was replaced by a harsh dramatic narrative. The main character Kuzma Krasov, having lived a difficult life, asks the main Russian question: “Who is to blame for this?”
As if answering this question, his teacher Balashkin recalls the tragic fates of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol and other talented people of Russia. And when at the end of his speech he blames the people for everything, Kuzma cannot stand it: “Such people! The greatest people, and not “like that,” let me tell you... After all, these writers are the children of this very people.” The writer received new impressions during a trip to the countries of the East in 1907.
He reflects on the wisdom of the ages, the culture created by man, and the cruelty of civilization. This is how the story “Mr. from San Francisco” is born. Without giving the hero, an American businessman, even a name, the author reports that all his life this man thought only about increasing his fortune, there is nothing human in him. The power of money does not save him in the face of death, but in fact he was spiritually dead during his lifetime. Bunin talks about the power of gold over a person. Even a ship carrying a dead master symbolizes a world where everything is bought and sold.
In 1911, his story “Sukhodol” appeared in print, which Gorky called a “memorial service” for the nobility. But here it is shown not only regret about the impending destruction of the estates, but also the powerless position of the peasants at the court of the landowner. Revealing the tragic fate of the former serf Natalya, the writer pronounces a guilty verdict against the owners of Sukhodol. Despite the sad course of events, the story is very poetic. The girl’s lyrical memories are commented on and supplemented with remarks by the author himself.
Bunin's final style and worldview took shape in 1914-1916. His stories and stories become more sophisticated and take on the meaning of philosophical ideas. Reflections on the meaning of life are introduced into the story “Chang's Dreams.”
The work is built on the contrast of two truths: life is beautiful and, conversely, it is only for crazy people. The narrative does not give hope for the structure of life according to the first of them and suggests looking for the third, divine truth.
last years of life
The Second World War found the Bunins in the French city of Grasse.
By that time, the money from the Nobel Prize had run out, and the family had to live from hand to mouth. Cracked fingers from the cold, no bathing, no washing of feet, sickening white turnip soups. I was “rich” - now, by the will of fate, I suddenly became poor, like Job. I was “famous all over the world” - now no one in the world needs me - the world has no time for me!
Meanwhile, Bunin continued to work. The 74-year-old writer noted in his diary: “Lord, extend my strength for my lonely, poor life in this beauty and work!” In 1944, he completed the collection “Dark Alleys,” which included 38 stories. Among them are “Clean Monday”, “Ballad”, “Muse”, “Business Cards”. Later, nine years later, he supplemented the collection with two more stories, “In the Spring, in Judea” and “Overnight.” The author himself considered the story “Dark Alleys” to be his best work. The war reconciled the writer with the Bolshevik regime that he hated. Everything faded into the background, and the homeland came first. Bunin bought a map of the world and marked on it the course of military operations, which he read about in the newspapers. He celebrated the defeat of Hitler’s army at Stalingrad as a personal victory, and during the days of the Tehran conference, surprising himself, he wrote in his diary: “No, just think about what it’s come to - Stalin is flying to Persia, and I’m trembling, God forbid that anything happens to him.” what didn’t happen on the road.” At the end of the war, the writer often thought about returning to his homeland.
In May 1945, the Bunins arrived in Paris, where they celebrated the day of victory over Nazi Germany. Here in 1946 they learned about their restoration to USSR citizenship and even wanted to return. In a letter to prose writer Mark Aldanov, Bunin wrote: “But here, too, a miserable, painful, anxious existence awaits us. So, after all, there is only one thing left to do: go home. As you can hear, this is what they really want and promise mountains of gold in every sense. But how to decide on this? I’ll wait and think...” But after the Resolution “On the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” of 1946, in which the USSR Central Committee criticized the work of Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova, the writer changed his mind about returning.
Ivan Bunin died in Paris on November 8, 1953. The writer was buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.
