Biography

Bunin Ivan Alekseevich (1870 - 1953)

"No, it's not the landscape that draws me,
Not the colors I seek to notice,
And what shines in these colors,
Love and joy of being. "
I. Bunin

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 23, 1870 (October 10, old style) in Voronezh, on Dvoryanskaya Street. The impoverished landowners Bunins belonged to a noble family, among their ancestors - V. A. Zhukovsky and the poetess Anna Bunina.
In Voronezh, the Bunins appeared three years before the birth of Vanya, to teach their eldest sons: Yulia (13 years old) and Evgeny (12 years old). Julius, who was extremely capable of languages ​​and mathematics, studied brilliantly, Eugene studied poorly, or rather, did not study at all, he left the gymnasium early; he was a gifted artist, but in those years he was not interested in painting, he chased pigeons more. As for the youngest, his mother, Lyudmila Alexandrovna, always said that "Vanya was different from the rest of the children from birth," that she always knew that he was "special", "no one has such a soul as his" .
In 1874, the Bunins decided to move from the city to the village to the Butyrki farm, in the Yelets district of the Oryol province, to the last estate of the family. That spring Julius graduated from the gymnasium with a gold medal and had to leave for Moscow in the autumn to enter the mathematical faculty of the university.
In the village, little Vanya "heard enough" of songs and fairy tales from his mother and yard servants. Memories of childhood - from the age of seven, as Bunin wrote - are connected with him "with the field, with peasant huts" and their inhabitants. He spent whole days disappearing in the nearest villages, grazing cattle with peasant children, traveling at night, making friends with some of them.
Imitating the shepherd, he and his sister Masha ate black bread, radish, "rough and bumpy cucumbers," and at this meal, "without realizing it, they shared the earth itself, all that sensual, material, from which the world was created," Bunin wrote. in the autobiographical novel "The Life of Arseniev". Even then, with a rare power of perception, he felt, by his own admission, "the divine splendor of the world" - the main motive of his work. It was at this age that an artistic perception of life was revealed in him, which, in particular, was expressed in the ability to depict people with facial expressions and gestures; He was already a talented storyteller. About eight Bunin wrote the first poem.
In the eleventh year he entered the Yelets gymnasium. At first he studied well, everything was easy; could memorize a whole page of a poem from one reading, if it interested him. But from year to year, the teaching went worse, in the third grade he remained for the second year. Most of the teachers were gray and insignificant people. In the gymnasium, he wrote poetry, imitating Lermontov, Pushkin. He was not attracted to what is usually
read at this age, and read, as he said, "anything."
He did not graduate from the gymnasium, he later studied independently under the guidance of his older brother Yuly Alekseevich, a candidate of the university.
In the autumn of 1889, he began work in the editorial office of the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper, often he was the actual editor; published in it his stories, poems, literary-critical articles, and notes in the permanent section "Literature and Printing". He lived by literary work and was in great need. His father went bankrupt, in 1890 he sold the estate in Ozerki without a manor, and having lost his estate, in 1893 he moved to Kmenka to his sister., Mother and Masha - to Vasilyevsky to Bunin's cousin Sofya Nikolaevna Pusheshnikova. There was nowhere for the young poet to wait for help.
In the editorial office, Bunin met Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, the daughter of a Yelets doctor who worked as a proofreader. His passionate love for her was marred at times by quarrels. In 1891, she married, but their marriage was not legalized, they lived without getting married, the father and mother did not want to marry their daughter to a poor poet. Bunin's youthful novel formed the plot basis of the fifth book of Arseniev's Life, which was published separately under the title Lika.
Many imagine Bunin dry and cold. V. N. Muromtseva-Bunina says: “True, sometimes he wanted to seem like he was a first-class actor,” but “whoever didn’t know him to the end cannot even imagine what kind of tenderness his soul was capable of.” He was one of those who did not reveal himself to everyone. He was distinguished by the great strangeness of his nature. It is hardly possible to name another Russian writer who, with such self-forgetfulness, so impetuously expressed his feeling of love, as he did in his letters to Varvara Pashchenko, combining in his dreams the image with everything beautiful that he found in nature, in poetry and music. With this side of his life - restraint in passion and the search for the ideal of love - he resembles Goethe, who, by his own admission, has much autobiographical in Werther.
At the end of August 1892, Bunin and Pashchenko moved to Poltava, where Julius Alekseevich worked as a statistician in the provincial zemstvo council.
He took both Pashchenko and his younger brother into his administration. In the Poltava zemstvo, the intelligentsia was grouped, involved in the populist movement of the 70-80s. The Bunin brothers were part of the editorial board of the Poltava Provincial Gazette, which since 1894 has been under the influence of the progressive intelligentsia. Bunin placed his works in this newspaper. By order of the Zemstvo, he also wrote essays "on the fight against harmful
insects, about the harvest of bread and herbs. " As he believed, so many of them were printed that they could make three or four volumes.
He also collaborated with the Kievlyanin newspaper. Now Bunin's poems and prose began to appear more often in "thick" magazines - "Bulletin of Europe", "World of God", "Russian wealth" - and attracted the attention of leading figures in literary criticism. N. K. Mikhailovsky spoke well of the story "The Village Sketch" (later entitled "Tanka") and wrote about the author that he would become a "great writer." At this time, Bunin's lyrics
acquired a more objective character; autobiographical motifs characteristic of the first collection of poems (it was published in Orel as an appendix to the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper in 1891), by definition of the author himself, excessively intimate, gradually disappeared from his work, which now received more complete forms.
In 1893-1894, Bunin, in his words, "from falling in love with Tolstoy as an artist," was a Tolstoyan and "adapted to the cooper's craft." He visited the Tolstoyan colonies near Poltava and traveled to the Sumy district to the sectarians. Pavlovka - to the "Malevants", in their views close to the Tolstoyans. At the very end of 1893, he visited the Khilkovo farm, which belonged to Prince. D. A. Khilkov. From there he went to Moscow to see Tolstoy and visited him on one of the days between January 4 and 8, 1894. The meeting made on Bunin, as he wrote, "an amazing impression." Tolstoy and dissuaded him from "giving up to the end."
In the spring and summer of 1894 Bunin traveled around Ukraine. "In those years, he recalled, I was in love with Little Russia in its villages and steppes, eagerly sought rapprochement with its people, eagerly listened to songs, his soul."
The year 1895 was a turning point in Bunin's life: after the "flight" of Pashchenko, who left Bunin and married his friend Arseny Bibikov, in January he left the service in Poltava and went to St. Petersburg, and then to Moscow. Now he entered the literary milieu. The great success at the literary evening, which took place on November 21 in the hall of the Credit Society in St. Petersburg, encouraged him. There he made a reading of the story "To the End of the World".
His impressions from more and more new meetings with writers were varied and sharp. D. V. Grigorovich and A. M. Zhemchuzhnikov, one of the creators of Kozma Prutkov, who continued the classical XIX century; Narodniks N. K. Mikhailovsky and N. N. Zlatovratsky; symbolists and decadents K. D. Balmont and F. K. Sollgub. In December, in Moscow, Bunin met the symbolist leader V. Ya.
Moscow "hotel - with Chekhov. He was very interested in Bunin's talent V. G. Korolenko - Bunin met him on December 7, 1896 in St. Petersburg at the anniversary of K. M. Stanyukovich; in the summer of 1897 - with Kuprin in Lustdorf, near Odessa.
In June 1898 Bunin left for Odessa. Here he became close with members of the "Association of South Russian Artists", who were going to "Thursdays", became friends with the artists E. I. Bukovetsky, V. P. Kurovsky (about her
Bunin's poems "In Memory of a Friend") and P. A. Nilus (from him Bunin took something for the stories "Galya Ganskaya" and "Chang's Dreams").
In Odessa, Bunin married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni (1879-1963) on September 23, 1898. Family life did not go well, Bunin and Anna Nikolaevna separated in early March 1900. Their son Kolya died on January 16, 1905. In early April 1899, Bunin visited Yalta, met Chekhov, and met Gorky. During his visits to Moscow, Bunin visited N. D. Teleshov's "Wednesdays", which united prominent realist writers, willingly read his unpublished works; the atmosphere in this circle was friendly, no one was offended by frank, sometimes destructive criticism.
On April 12, 1900, Bunin arrived in Yalta, where the Art Theater staged his "The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya" and other performances for Chekhov. Bunin met Stanislavsky, Knipper, S. V. Rakhmaninov, with whom he forever established friendship. The 1900s were a new frontier in Bunin's life. Repeated travels through the countries of Europe and to the East widened the world before his eyes, so
hungry for new experiences. And in the literature of the beginning decade, with the release of new books, he won recognition as one of the best writers of his time. He spoke mainly with poetry.
On September 11, 1900, he went with Kurovsky to Berlin, Paris, and Switzerland. In the Alps, they climbed to great heights. Upon returning from abroad, Bunin ended up in Yalta, lived in Chekhov's house,
I spent "an amazing week" with Chekhov, who arrived from Italy somewhat later. In the Chekhov family, Bunin became, in his words, "one of his own"; with his sister Maria Pavlovna, he was in "almost brotherly relations." Chekhov was invariably "gentle, affable, cared for him like an elder." Since 1899, Bunin met with Chekhov every year, in Yalta and in Moscow, during the four years of their friendly communication, until Anton Pavlovich's departure abroad in 1904, where he died. Chekhov predicted that Bunin would become a "great writer"; he wrote in the story "The Pines" as "very new, very fresh and very good". "Magnificent", in his opinion, "Dreams" and "Gold Bottom" - "there are places just surprisingly."
At the beginning of 1901, a collection of poems "Leaf Fall" was published, which caused numerous reviews from critics. Kuprin wrote about the "rare artistic subtlety" in conveying the mood. Blok for "Falling Leaves" and other poems
recognized Bunin's right to "one of the main places" among contemporary Russian poetry. Falling Leaves and Longfellow's translation of The Song of Hiawatha were awarded the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences, awarded to Bunin on October 19, 1903. Since 1902, the collected works of Bunin began to appear in separate numbered volumes in Gorky's publishing house "Knowledge". And again travel - to Constantinople, to France and Italy, across the Caucasus, and so all his life he was attracted by various cities and countries.
On November 4, 1906, Bunin met in Moscow, in the house of B.K. Zaitsev, with Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, the daughter of a member of the Moscow City Council and the niece of the chairman of the First State Duma, S.A. Muromtsev. On April 10, 1907, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna set off from Moscow to the countries of the East - Egypt, Syria, Palestine. On May 12, having made their "first long journey", they went ashore in Odessa. From this journey began their life together. About this journey - a cycle of stories "The Shadow of a Bird" (1907-1911).
They combine diary entries describing cities, ancient ruins, monuments of art, pyramids, tombs - and legends of ancient peoples, excursions into the history of their culture and the death of kingdoms. About Bunin's depiction of the East, Yu. sometimes as if flooded with sultry waves of the sun, decorated with precious inlays and arabesques of imagery; and when it comes to gray-haired antiquity, lost in the distances of religion and mythology, you experience the impression that some majestic chariot of mankind is moving before us.
Bunin's prose and poetry now acquired new colors. An excellent colorist, he, according to P. A. Nilus, decisively instilled in literature the “principles of painting”. The previous prose, as Bunin himself noted, was such that "made some critics interpret" him, for example, "as a melancholy lyricist or a singer of noble estates, a singer of idylls", and his literary activity was revealed "more vividly and diversely only from 1908.1909 years". These new features were given to Bunin's prose by the stories "Shadow of a Bird". The Academy of Sciences awarded Bunin the second Pushkin Prize in 1909 for poetry and translations of Byron; the third - also for poetry. In the same year, Bunin was elected an honorary academician.
The story "The Village", published in 1910, caused great controversy and was the beginning of Bunin's enormous popularity. The "Village", the first major thing, was followed by other novels and stories, as he wrote
Bunin, "sharply depicting the Russian soul, its bright and dark, often tragic foundations", and his "merciless" works caused "passionate hostile responses". During these years, I felt how my literary forces were growing stronger every day. " Gorky wrote to Bunin that "no one took the village so deeply, so historically." Bunin widely captured the life of the Russian people, touches on historical, national problems and what was the topic of the day - war and revolution - depicts, in his opinion, "in the footsteps of Radishchev," the village of his day without any embellishment. After Bunin's story, with its "merciless truth" based on a deep knowledge of the "peasant kingdom", it became impossible to depict the peasants in the tone of populist idealization. Bunin's view of the Russian countryside developed partly under the influence of travel, "after a sharp slap in the face abroad." The village is depicted not motionless, new trends penetrate it, new people appear, and Tikhon Ilyich himself thinks about his existence
shopkeeper and tavern keeper. The story "The Village" (which Bunin also called a novel), like his work in general, asserted the realistic traditions of Russian classical literature in an age when they were attacked and denied by modernists and decadents. It captures the richness of observations and colors, the strength and beauty of the language, the harmony of the drawing, the sincerity of tone and truthfulness. But "The Village" is not traditional.
People appeared in it, mostly new in Russian literature: the Krasov brothers, Tikhon's wife, Rodka, Young, Nikolka Gray and his son Deniska, girls and women at the wedding of Young and Deniska. Bunin himself noted this.
In mid-December 1910, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna went to Egypt and further to the tropics - to Ceylon, where they stayed for half a month. They returned to Odessa in mid-April 1911. The diary of their voyage is "Many Waters". About this journey - also the stories "Brothers", "City of the King of Kings". What the Englishman felt in The Brothers is autobiographical. According to Bunin, travel in his life played a huge role "; regarding his wanderings, he even developed, as he said," some philosophy. both for Bunin and for Russian literature of lyrical prose.
He wrote that "this is something like Maupassant." Close to this prose are the stories immediately preceding the diary - "The Shadow of the Bird" - poems in prose, as the author himself defined their genre. From their diary - the transition to "Dry Valley", which synthesized the experience of the author of the "Village" in creating everyday prose and lyrical prose. "Dry Valley" and the stories written soon after marked Bunin's new creative rise after "The Village" - in the sense of great psychological depth and complexity of images, as well as the novelty of the genre. In "Dry Valley" in the foreground is not historical Russia with its way of life, as in "Village", but "the soul of a Russian person in the deep sense of the word, the image of the traits of the psyche of a Slav," said Bunin.
Bunin went his own way, did not join any fashionable literary movements or groups, in his words, "did not throw out any banners" and did not proclaim any slogans. Criticism
noted the powerful language of Bunin, his art of raising "everyday phenomena of life" into the world of poetry. There were no "low" topics unworthy of the poet's attention for him. There is a great sense of history in his poems. The reviewer of the journal "Bulletin of Europe" wrote: "His historical style is unparalleled in our poetry ... Prosaism, accuracy, beauty of language are brought to the limit. There is hardly another poet whose style would be so unadorned, everyday as here; dozens of pages you will not find a single epithet, not a single comparison, not a single metaphor ... such a simplification of poetic language without prejudice to poetry is only possible for true talent ... With regard to pictorial accuracy, Mr. Bunin has no rivals among Russian poets " . The book "The Cup of Life" (1915) touches upon the deep problems of human existence. The French writer, poet and literary critic René Gil wrote to Bunin in 1921 about the French edition of The Cup of Life: “How complicated everything is psychologically! And at the same time, this is your genius, everything is born from simplicity and from the most accurate observation of reality: an atmosphere is created where one breathes something strange and disturbing, emanating from the very act of life! This kind of suggestion, the suggestion of that secret that surrounds the action, we know in Dostoevsky too; but with him it comes from the abnormal imbalance of the characters, from -for his nervous passion, which hovers, like some kind of exciting aura, around some cases of madness.You have the opposite: everything is a radiation of life, full of strength, and disturbs precisely by its own forces, by primitive forces, where complexity, something inescapable, is hidden under visible unity, violating the usual clear norm.
Bunin developed his ethical ideal under the influence of Socrates, whose views are set forth in the writings of his students Xenophon and Plato. More than once he read the semi-philosophical, semi-poetic work of the "divine Plato" (Pushkin) in the form of a dialogue - "Phidon". After reading the dialogues, he wrote in his diary on August 21, 1917: "How much Socrates said, in Indian, in Jewish philosophy!" ". Bunin was fascinated by his doctrine of the value of the human person. And he saw in each of the people to some extent "concentration ... of high forces", to the knowledge of which, Bunin wrote in the story "Returning to Rome", called Socrates. In his enthusiasm for Socrates, he followed Tolstoy, who, as V. Ivanov said, followed the paths of Socrates in search of the norm of good. " Tolstoy was close to Bunin and the fact that for him goodness and beauty, ethics and aesthetics are inseparable. "Beauty as crown of good
- wrote Tolstoy. Bunin affirmed in his work the eternal values ​​- goodness and beauty. This gave him a sense of connection, fusion with the past, the historical continuity of being. "Brothers", "Lord of San
Francisco", "Loopy Ears", based on the real facts of modern life, are not only accusatory, but deeply philosophical. "Brothers" is a particularly clear example. This is a story about the eternal themes of love, life and death, and not just about the dependent existence of colonial peoples The embodiment of the idea of ​​this story is equally based on the impressions of a trip to Ceylon and on the myth of Mara - a legend about the god of life and death. Mara is an evil demon of Buddhists - at the same time - the personification of being. Bunin took a lot for prose and poetry from Russian and world folklore, his attention was attracted by Buddhist and Muslim legends, Syrian legends, Chaldean, Egyptian myths and the myths of the idolaters of the Ancient East, the legends of the Arabs.
He had a great sense of homeland, language, history. Bunin said: all these sublime words, the wondrous beauty of the song, "cathedrals - all this is necessary, all this has been created for centuries ...". One of the sources of his creativity was folk speech. The poet and literary critic G. V. Adamovich, who knew Bunin well and had close contact with him in France, wrote to the author of this article on December 19, 1969: Bunin, of course, "knew, loved, appreciated folk art, but was exceptionally sensitive to fakes under to the ostentatious style russe. Cruel and correct - his review of Gorodetsky's poems is an example of this. Even Blok's "Kulikovo Field" is, in my opinion, a wonderful thing, he was annoyed precisely because of his "too Russian" outfit ... He said - "this is Vasnetsov", that is, a masquerade and an opera. But he treated the fact that it was not a "masquerade" differently: I remember, for example, something about "The Tale of Igor's Campaign". The meaning of his words was approximately the same as in the words of Pushkin: all the poets who have gathered together cannot compose such a miracle! But the translations of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" revolted him, in particular, the translation of Balmont. Because of the forgery of an exaggeratedly Russian style or size, he despised Shmelev, although he recognized his talent. Bunin generally had a rare ear for falsehood, for "pedals ": as soon as he heard falsehood, he fell into a rage. Because of this, he loved Tolstoy so much and how once, I remember, he said: "Tolstoy, who nowhere has a single exaggerated word ..." In May 1917, Bunin arrived in the village of Glotovo, in the estate of Vasilyevsky, Oryol province, lived here all summer and autumn. On October 23, he and his wife left for Moscow, on October 26 they arrived in Moscow, lived on Povarskaya (now - Vorovsky Street), in Baskakov's house No. 26, apt. 2, with the parents of Vera Nikolaevna, the Muromtsevs. The time was alarming, battles were going on, "past their windows, wrote Gruzinsky A.E. on November 7 to A.B. Derman, - a gun rattled along Povarskaya". Bunin spent the winter of 1917-1918 in Moscow. In the lobby of the house where the Murmtsevs' apartment was, a watch was established; the doors were locked, the gates were blocked with logs.
Bunin was also on duty.

Bunin joined the literary life, which, in spite of everything, with all the swiftness of social, political and military events, with devastation and famine, still did not stop. He has been to
"Book Publishing Writers", participated in its work, in the literary circle "Wednesday" and in the Art Circle. On May 21, 1918, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna left Moscow - through Orsha and Minsk to Kyiv, then to Odessa; January 26, Art. Art. 1920 sailed to Constantinople, then through Sofia and Belgrade arrived in Paris on March 28, 1920. Long years of emigration began - in Paris and in the south of France, in Grasse, near Cannes.
Bunin told Vera Nikolaevna that "he cannot live in the new world, that he belongs to the old world, to the world of Goncharov, Tolstoy, Moscow, St. Petersburg; that poetry is only there, and in the new world he does not catch it." Bunin as an artist grew all the time. Mitina's Love (1924), Sunstroke (1925), Cornet Elagin's Case (1925), and then Arseniev's Life (1927-1929,1933) and many other works marked new achievements in Russian prose. Bunin himself spoke of the "shrill lyricism" of Mitya's Love. This is most captivating in his novels and short stories of the last three decades. They can also be said in the words of their author - a kind of "fashion", poetry.
In the prose of these years, the sensual perception of life is excitingly conveyed. Contemporaries noted the great philosophical meaning of such works as Mitina's Love or Arseniev's Life. In them, Bunin broke through "to a deep metaphysical sense of the tragic nature of man."
K. G. Paustovsky wrote that "The Life of Arseniev" is "one of the most remarkable phenomena of world literature." In 1927-1930, Bunin wrote short stories ("Elephant", "Sky over the Wall" and many others) - a page, half a page, and sometimes several lines, they were included in the book "God's Tree". What Bunin wrote in this genre was the result of a bold search for new forms of extremely concise writing, the beginning of which was laid not by Turgenev, as some of his contemporaries claimed, but by Tolstoy and Chekhov. Sofia University Professor P. Bitsilli wrote: "It seems to me that the collection "God's Tree" is the most
perfect of all Bunin's creations and the most revealing. In no other place is there such eloquent conciseness, such clarity and subtlety of writing, such creative freedom, such truly
royal dominion over matter. No other, therefore, contains so much data for studying his method, for understanding what lies at its basis and on what it, in essence, is exhausted. This is the same, it would seem, simple, but also the rarest and most valuable quality that Bunin has in common with the most truthful Russian writers, with Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov: honesty, hatred of any falsehood ... ".
In 1933, Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize, as he believed, primarily for "The Life of Arseniev." When Bunin came to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize, in Sweden he was already recognized by sight. Bunin's photographs could be seen in every newspaper, in shop windows, on the cinema screen. On the street, the Swedes, seeing the Russian writer, looked around. Bunin pulled his lambskin hat over his eyes and grumbled: - What is it? An absolute success for the tenor. The remarkable Russian writer Boris Zaitsev spoke about Bunin's Nobel days: "... You see, what - we were some kind of last people there, emigrants, and suddenly an émigré writer was awarded an international prize! A Russian writer! .. And they awarded him for some political writings, but still for art... I was writing in the Vozrozhdenie newspaper at that time... So I was urgently assigned to write an editorial about receiving the Nobel Prize. It was very late, I remember what happened ten in the evening, when they told me this. For the first time in my life, I went to the printing house and wrote at night ... I remember that I left in such an excited state (from the printing house), went out to place d "Italie and there, you know, went around everything bistro and in each bistro he drank a glass of cognac for the health of Ivan Bunin! .. I arrived home in such a cheerful mood ... at three o'clock in the morning, at four, maybe ... other countries, as well as to meet publishers and translators. In the German city of Lindau, he first encountered fascist orders; he was arrested, subjected to an unceremonious and humiliating search.
In October 1939, Bunin settled in Grasse at the Villa Jeannette, and lived here throughout the war. Here he wrote the book "Dark Alleys" stories about love, as he himself said, "about her" dark "and most often very gloomy and cruel alleys." This book, according to Bunin, "talks about the tragic and about many things tender and beautiful - I think that this is the best and most original thing that I have written in my life."
Under the Germans, Bunin did not print anything, although he lived in great lack of money and hunger. He treated the conquerors with hatred, rejoiced at the victories of the Soviet and allied troops. In 1945, he said goodbye to Grasse forever and returned to Paris on the first of May. He has been sick a lot in recent years. Nevertheless, he wrote a book of memoirs and worked on the book "About Chekhov", which he did not manage to finish. In total, Bunin wrote ten new books in exile.
In letters and diaries, Bunin speaks of his desire to return to Moscow. But in old age and in illness, it was not easy to decide on such a step. Most importantly, there was no certainty whether the hopes for a quiet life and for the publication of books would come true. Bunin hesitated. The "case" of Akhmatova and Zoshchenko, the noise in the press around these names finally determined his decision. He wrote to M. A. Aldanov on September 15, 1947: “Today I wrote a letter from Teleshov on the evening of September 7 ... “What a pity that you did not experience the time when your big book was typed, when you were so expected here, when you could be fed up and rich and in such high esteem! “After reading this, I tore my hair for an hour. And then I immediately calmed down, remembering what could have been for me instead of satiety, wealth and honor from Zhdanov and Fadeev ...” Bunin is now read in all European languages ​​​​and in some eastern. We publish it in millions of copies. On his 80th birthday, in 1950, Francois Mauriac wrote to him about his admiration for his work, about the sympathy that his personality inspired and his cruel fate. André Gide, in a letter published in the Le Figaro newspaper, says that on the threshold of his 80th birthday, he turns to Bunin and greets him "on behalf of France", calls him a great artist and writes: "I do not know writers ... whose sensations would be more precise and at the same time unexpected. ". They admired the work of Bunin R. Rolland, who called him a "brilliant artist", Henri de Regnier, T. Mann, R. -M. Rilke, Jerome Jerome, Yaroslav Ivashkevich. Reviews of German, French, English, etc. the press from the beginning of the 1920s onwards were mostly enthusiastic, establishing world recognition for him. As early as 1922, the English magazine "The Nation and Athenaeum" wrote about the books "The Gentleman from San Francisco" and "The Village" as extremely significant; everything in this review is sprinkled with big praises: "A new planet in our sky!.", "Apocalyptic power...". At the end: "Bunin won his place in world literature." Bunin's prose was equated with the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, while saying that he "updated" Russian art "both in form and in content." In the realism of the last century, he brought new features and
new colors, which brought him closer to the Impressionists.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died on the night of November 8, 1953 in the arms of his wife in dire poverty. In his memoirs, Bunin wrote: “I was born too late. If I had been born earlier, my writing memories would not have been like that. , Lenin, Stalin, Hitler ... How not to envy our forefather Noah! Only one flood fell to his lot ... "Bunin was buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois near Paris, in a crypt, in a zinc coffin.
You are a thought, you are a dream. Through the smoky blizzard
Crosses run - outstretched arms.
I listen to the pensive spruce
A melodious ringing... Everything is just a thought and sounds!
What lies in the grave, are you?
Parting, sadness was marked
your hard way. Now from no. Crosses
They only keep the ashes. Now you are a thought. You are eternal.

Let's be like the sun! Let's forget about
Who leads us on the golden path,
We will only remember that forever to another,
To the new, to the strong, to the good, to the evil,
Brightly we strive in a dream of gold.
We will always pray to the unearthly,
In our earthly desire!
Let's be like the sun is always young
Gently caress the fiery flowers,
The air is clear and everything is golden.
Are you happy? Be twice as happy
Be the embodiment of a sudden dream!
Just do not hesitate in motionless peace,
Further, still, to the cherished line,
Further, we are beckoned by a fatal number
To Eternity, where new flowers will flare up.
We will be like the Sun, it is young.
This is the promise of beauty!

Konstantin Balmont

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont was born on June 3, 1867 in the village of Gumnishchi, Shuisky district, Vladimir province.

In 1876-1883, Balmont studied at the Shuya gymnasium, from where he was expelled for participating in an anti-government circle. He continued his education at the Vladimir Gymnasium, then at the University of Moscow, and at the Demidov Lyceum in Yaroslavl. In 1887 he was expelled from Moscow University for participation in student unrest and exiled to Shuya. He never received a higher education, but thanks to his diligence and curiosity, he became one of the most erudite and cultured people of his time. Balmont annually read a huge number of books, studied, according to various sources, from 14 to 16 languages, in addition to literature and art, he was fond of history, ethnography, and chemistry.
Poems began to write in childhood. The first book of poems "Collection of Poems" was published in Yaroslavl at the expense of the author in 1890. The young poet, after the release of the book, burned almost the entire small print run.

Balmont was destined to become one of the founders of a new direction in literature - symbolism. However, among the “senior Symbolists” (D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, F. Sologub, V. Bryusov) and among the “younger” ones (A. Blok, Andrei Bely, Vyach. Ivanov), he had his own position, associated with a wider understanding of symbolism as poetry, which, in addition to a specific meaning, has a hidden content, expressed with the help of hints, mood, musical sound. Of all the symbolists, Balmont most consistently developed the impressionist branch. His poetic world is the world of the finest fleeting observations, fragile feelings.
Balmont's forerunners in poetry were, in his opinion, Zhukovsky, Lermontov, Fet, Shelley and E. Poe.
Widespread fame came to Balmont rather late, and in the late 1890s he was rather known as a talented translator from Norwegian, Spanish, English and other languages.

In 1903, one of the best collections of the poet "We'll be like the sun" and the collection "Only Love" were published. And before that, for the anti-government poem "The Little Sultan", read at a literary evening in the City Duma, the authorities expelled Balmont from St. Petersburg, forbidding him to live in other university cities. And in 1902, Balmont went abroad, being a political emigrant.

In May 1913, after an amnesty was announced in connection with the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty, Balmont returned to Russia and for some time found himself in the center of attention of the literary community. By this time, he was not only a famous poet, but also the author of three books containing literary critical and aesthetic articles: Mountain Peaks (1904), White Lightnings (1908), Sea Glow (1910).
Before the October Revolution, Balmont created two more truly interesting collections, Ash (1916) and Sonnets of the Sun, Honey and Moon (1917).

Balmont welcomed the overthrow of the autocracy, but the events that followed the revolution scared him away, and thanks to the support of A. Lunacharsky, Balmont received permission in June 1920 to temporarily travel abroad. The temporary departure turned into long years of emigration for the poet.

He died on December 23, 1942 from pneumonia. He was buried in the town of Noisy le Grand near Paris, where he lived in recent years.

KONSTANTIN BALMONT - SWAN

Music: Rick Wakeman & Adam Wakeman, Performed by: Boris Vetrov, Video: olgiya

Ilya ERENBURG
"Konstantin Balmont"
(from the book "Portraits of Modern Poets")
“... The fate of Balmont is truly tragic. Looking at him, I - once again - resent the inexplicable whims of the Supreme Director. What is it - "divine absurdity" or just unforgivable absent-mindedness? Throw a sharp kick onto the stage of the Middle Ages poor Francois Villon, who knew exactly all the labyrinths of the twentieth century, and forget about the wonderful trouveur, the singer of "golden", "fire-winged", "refined" and other lovely ladies. To miss the salons of Diane de Poitiers, and the forever lost opportunity to be sketched by Velasquez, and even a modest punch among the Neva harites in Yazykov's closet in order to throw the Spaniards poet, "drunk with scarlet blood", into the age of tanks, congresses of the International and other heavy scenery, for which neither Ronsard, nor Gongora, nor Languages ​​would even find names.
Love the splendor of anachronism in Balmont. When republics are enjoyed, honor the king in him. His copper face has green eyes. He doesn't step, he doesn't even walk, his birdlike legs don't seem to want to touch the ground. His voice is like a scream, then a twitter, and the Russian ear is disturbed by unusual, nasal "n" in favorite rhymes "in love, intoxicated, half asleep" ...
As an exemplary king, Balmont is majestic, absurd and touching. It generates admiration, indignation and pity in the hearts. In the days of the noon “We will be like the sun”, they fell on their faces, hearing his piercing voice. But yesterday's slaves rebel and overthrow the ruler. Balmont is hated because they worshiped him, because there is nothing to learn from him, and you cannot imitate him. And further, - Balmont in "Songs of the Avenger" or in "Kornilov's" poems - a politician, in "The Firebird" - a philologist, Balmont - a mystic, publicist, philosopher - a poor, poor king.
Balmont traveled all over the world. It seems that world poetry did not know the poet who spent so much time on the deck of a ship or at the window of a carriage. But, having crossed all the seas and passed all the roads, he did not notice anything in the world, except for his soul. This book is Balmont in Egypt, and this one is Balmont in Mexico. Rebels, you want to reproach him for it. It is better to bow before the soul, which is so great that a tireless traveler has been exploring it for decades, discovering new deserts and new oceans.
Balmont knows about thirty languages. He easily learned dozens of dialects and dialects. But even speak to him in Russian, he will look at you with unseeing eyes, and the soul, not distracted, no, simply absent, will not answer anything. Balmont understands only one language - Balmont's. In his rehashings, Shelley and the storyteller of epics, the girl from the Polynesian Islands and Whitman speak the same words.
They are often outraged - how many bad poems Balmont has. They point to a shelf with plump volumes - which one, 20th, 30th? There are poets who carefully polish every diamond in their crown. But Balmont, with royal extravagance, throws a handful of valuable stones. Let there be a lot of glass among them, but do not burn with eternal light "Burning buildings" or "We will be like the sun." Who will condemn this magnificent gesture, this wonderful extravagance? .. "

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 10, 1870 in Voronezh. He came from an ancient noble family. Bunin wrote: “This family gave a wonderful woman of the beginning of the last century, the poetess A.P. Bunin, and the poet V.A. Zhukovsky (illegitimate son of A.I. Bunin); we are in some relationship with the brothers Kireevsky, Grots, Yushkovs, Voeikovs, Bulgakovs, Soymonovs.
February 22, 1887 - Bunin's poem "Over Nadson's Grave" was first published in the Rodina newspaper. In the same newspaper, several more poems and stories "Two Wanderers" and "Nefyodka" were published.
In the autumn of 1889, the publisher of the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper invited Bunin to work in the editorial office. One of the employees of the Orlovsky Vestnik, Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, became Bunin's first love.
Ivan Alekseevich is fond of Tolstoyanism. The ideas of simplification became close to him, and over the next few years he visited several Tolstoyan colonies in Ukraine.
1890 - Bunin, having independently studied English, translates G. Longfellow's poem "The Song of Hiawatha".
In 1894, Ivan Alekseevich met with L.N. Tolstoy, who advised him not to get too carried away with “simplification”. Bunin decides to devote himself to literature.
1909 - Bunin is awarded the second Pushkin Prize; in the same year he was elected an honorary academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
1917 - Bunin takes the October Revolution with hostility. Writes a pamphlet diary "Cursed Days".
In the summer of 1918, Bunin moved from Bolshevik Moscow to Odessa, occupied by German troops. With the approach in April 1919 to the city of the Red Army, he does not emigrate, but remains 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 the OSVAG (propaganda and information body) under the All-Russian Union of Youth Leagues. In February 1920, when the Bolsheviks approached, he left Russia. Emigrates to France.
In the same year, I.A. Bunin heads the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists in Paris, makes a lot of appeals.
November 9, 1933 - I.A. Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the truthful artistic talent with which he recreated the typical Russian character in prose."
Post-war period - Bunin returns to Paris. He is no longer a staunch opponent of the Soviet regime, but he does not recognize the changes that have taken place in Russia either.
1946 - the book by I.A. Bunin "Dark alleys".
At the same time, the leadership of the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists in Paris excluded from its membership all those who accepted Soviet citizenship. Bunin leaves this organization in protest. Many colleagues turn away from him. In the Soviet Union, the almost ready-to-publish collection of I.A. Bunin, and the interview in the "Soviet Patriot" turns out to be falsified. 1950 - I.A. Bunin "Memoirs", distinguished by sharpness of assessments.
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: 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. He was buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery. In 1929-1954. Bunin's works were not published in the USSR. Since 1955 - the most published writer of the "first wave" in the USSR (several collected works, many one-volume books). Some works (“Cursed Days”, etc.) were printed in the USSR only during perestroika.