Many readers know when Bunin was born and died. But how many people remember that it was a great Russian poet and novelist who wrote about the collapse of the Russian nobility? And, probably, few people know that Ivan Alekseevich became the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize in 1833. And in order to understand how he achieved such results, you need to get a little acquainted with his biography.
Children's years of the future laureate
In 1870, in the estate of his parents, the future writer Ivan Bunin was born in Voronezh. Ivan Alekseevich’s grandfather was a fairly prosperous landowner. But after the death of his wife, he began to senselessly waste his fortune. And the little that was left after him, Bunin's father drank and lost at the card table. At the turn of the century, the condition of the family was almost exhausted. The future writer Bunin from early childhood witnessed the growing impoverishment of the family.
Ivan spent most of his childhood years in a family estate, where he got acquainted with the life of peasants. In 1881, he entered a public school in Yelets, but after five years of education he was expelled due to financial difficulties of the family and was forced to return home.
Debut in creativity, or new acquaintances
At the age of seventeen, Ivan Alekseevich made his debut as a poet. His poem appeared in the journal "Homeland" in St. Petersburg. In 1889, Ivan Bunin followed his older brother, who had a great influence on him, to Kharkov. There he first holds the position of official, then he is hired as an assistant editor in the local newspaper Orlovsky Vestnik.
Ivan Alekseevich continues to write, and many of his stories have been published in some newspapers and magazines. His long relationship with an employee of the newspaper where he worked, Varvara Pashchenko, also dates to this period. After some time, they moved together to Poltava. Bunin begins to conduct active correspondence with Anton Chekhov, and over time they become very close friends. And in 1894, Ivan Alekseevich met with Leo Tolstoy. He admired the works of Lev Nikolaevich, but their social and moral views were very different.
Huge popularity and public recognition
When Bunin was born and died, of course, you need to know, but it is also interesting to know when his first book was published. And it was published in 1891 in Orel. The book consisted of poems written between 1887 and 1891. Moreover, some of the articles, essays and stories of Ivan Alekseevich, which were previously published in local newspapers and magazines, began to appear in periodicals of St. Petersburg.
By 1900, more than a hundred poems were published by Ivan Bunin. His poems are becoming quite popular with a wide range of readers. In the same period, the translation of the song “Song of Hiawatha" was awarded the Pushkin Prize, as well as the gold medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Many critics and colleagues appreciated the rarity of his talent, sophistication and clarity of thought.
In 1899, Bunin marries Anna Nikolaevna Zakni. She was the daughter of a wealthy Greek from Odessa. Unfortunately, the marriage was short, and the only child died at the age of five. And already in 1906, Ivan Alekseevich lives in a civil marriage with Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva. Not only the facts about when Bunin was born and died are interesting in their significance, but the information about his personal life and creative path are of great value to those who study the personality of Ivan Bunin.
Transition from poetry to prose
At the turn of the century, Ivan Alekseevich made a big transition from poetry to prose, which began to change in form and texture, became more rich lexically. In 1900, the novel "Antonov Apples" was published, which was later even included in textbooks on literature and was considered as Bunin's first real masterpiece.
Contemporaries commented on the work ambiguously. Someone emphasized the exceptional accuracy of the language, a subtle description of nature and a detailed psychological analysis, while others saw in this work a kind of nostalgia for the past of the Russian nobility. However, Bunin's prose is becoming very popular.
Famous works, or the story of your own family
In 1910, Ivan Alekseevich was elected one of the twelve full members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. And the very next year he published his first full-scale novel, The Village, which describes the dark life in the country, which he portrays as complete stupidity, cruelty and violence. And in 1911 his second novel, Sukhodol, was published.
Here he outlines the deplorable state of the Russian rural community. There is also a nostalgic description of the decaying Russian nobility, based on the real story of his own family. And again, Bunin's prose divided literary critics in expressing their opinions. The Social Democrats noted his absolute honesty in the works, but many others were very shocked by the negative of the author.
The outbreak of war, or Fear for the future of the state
Then Bunin and Muromtseva spent three winters from 1912 to 1914 with Maxim Gorky on the island of Capri. There he met with Fedor Chaliapin and Leonid Andreev. When the First World War began, Ivan Alekseevich divided his time between being in Moscow and the family estate. He was constantly harassed by the future of Russia. Does Ivan Bunin continue to write at this time? Poems or prose? And how did the revolution affect his work?
Ivan Alekseevich continues to work hard. In the winter of 1914, he completed a new volume of poetry and prose called "The Cup of Life." And already at the beginning of next year it was published and also received wide recognition. In the same year, "Mr. of San Francisco" was released. Perhaps the most famous of the stories that Bunin wrote. Years of life spent in Russia were drawing to a close. The revolution was approaching, which would force the great writer to leave his homeland.
Revolution and Ivan Alekseevich
Ivan Alekseevich witnessed the terror and destruction caused by the Communists during the Russian Revolution of 1917 . In April of that year, he broke all ties with Gorky, which he would never restore, and on May 21, 1918, Ivan Bunin and Muromtseva received official permission to leave Moscow. They moved to Odessa. Here Ivan Alekseevich lived for two years in the hope that whites could restore order. But soon revolutionary chaos spread throughout the state.
In February 1920, Bunin emigrated aboard the last French ship leaving Odessa with other anti-communist Russians, and finally settled in Grasse, in southern France. Slowly and painfully overcoming psychological stress, Ivan Alekseevich returns to his writing career. Ivan Bunin cannot live without a pen and paper.
The years of his life abroad were also marked by his numerous publications and new literary masterpieces. He publishes his pre-revolutionary works, novels, regularly contributes to the Russian emigration press. Nevertheless, he very seriously got used to the new world and believed that his muse was forever lost.
When was Bunin born and died?
Ivan Alekseevich became the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize in 1933. He received congratulations from a huge number of intellectuals around the world, but not a word from Soviet Russia, where his name and books were banned. During emigration, Bunin wrote a lot of famous works, among them the Cursed Days, which became quite popular, where the writer describes Soviet power in detail.
Born in 1870, Ivan Alekseevich went a long way in life. He survived the First World War, the bloody Russian Revolution, the years of World War II and died on November 8, 1953 in his apartment in Paris. He never returned to his homeland.