Lying on the threshing floor in a sieve, I read for a long time - and suddenly I was outraged. I’ve been reading again since early morning, again with a book in my hands! And so day after day, since childhood! He lived half his life in some kind of non-existent world, among people who had never been, made up, worried about their destinies, their joys and sorrows, as if he were his own, until the grave connecting himself with Abraham and Isaac, with the Pelasgians and Etruscans, with Socrates and Julius Caesar , Hamlet and Dante, Gretchen and Chatsky, Sobakevich and Ophelia, Pechorin and Natasha Rostova! And how can I now sort out among the real and fictitious companions of my earthly existence? How to separate them, how to determine the extent of their influence on me?
I read, lived in other people's inventions, but the field, the estate, the village, men, horses, flies, bumblebees, birds, clouds - everything lived in its own, real life. And so I suddenly felt this and woke up from my book obsession, threw the book into the straw and with surprise and joy, with some new eyes, I look around, I acutely see, hear, smell - most importantly, I feel something unusually simple and at that but an unusually complex time, something deep, wonderful, inexpressible, which exists in life and in myself and which is never properly written about in books.
While I was reading, changes were secretly taking place in nature. It was sunny and festive; now everything is dark and quiet. Little by little, clouds and clouds gathered in the sky, in some places, especially to the south, still bright and beautiful, but to the west, behind the village, behind its vineyards, rainy, bluish, dull. Warm, soft smell of distant field rain. One oriole sings in the garden.
A man returns from the graveyard along the dry purple road that runs between the threshing floor and the garden. On his shoulder is a white iron shovel with blue black soil stuck to it. The face is younger and clearer. The hat is pulled down from his sweaty forehead.
I planted a jasmine bush on my girl! - he says cheerfully. - Good health. Do you read everything, make up all the books?
He's happy. How? Only by living in the world, that is, by doing something most incomprehensible in the world.
An oriole sings in the garden. Everything else became quiet, silent, you couldn’t even hear the roosters. She sings alone, slowly making playful trills. Why, for whom? Is it for yourself, for the life that the garden and estate has been living for a hundred years? Or maybe this estate lives for her flute singing?
“I planted a jasmine bush on my girl.” Does the girl know about this? The man thinks he knows, and maybe he’s right. By evening the man will forget about this bush - for whom will it bloom? But it will bloom, and it will seem that it is not for nothing, but for someone and for something.
“You read everything, you make up all the books.” Why invent? Why heroines and heroes? Why a novel, a story, with a beginning and an ending? The eternal fear of seeming not bookish enough, not similar enough to those who are famous! And eternal torment is to remain silent forever, not to speak about what is truly yours and the only real thing, which requires the most legitimate expression, that is, trace, embodiment and preservation, at least in words!
Stories by I. A. Bunin about love
Lesson objectives: show the originality of the stories, novelty in the image psychological state person; create a desire to discuss what you read; see the ambiguity of interpretations of stories.
Methodical techniques: analytical conversation, presentation of stories, expressive reading.
Lesson progress
I. Teacher's word
The theme of love is one of the constant themes of art and one of the main ones in Bunin’s work. “All love is great happiness, even if it is not shared” - this phrase contains the pathos of Bunin’s depiction of love. In almost all works on this topic, the outcome is tragic. Eternal secret The writer sees love and the eternal drama of lovers in the fact that a person is captive in his love passion: love is an initially spontaneous, inevitable, often tragic feeling - happiness turns out to be unattainable.
II. Student performances
Presentation of stories read, exchange of impressions, brief retelling with reading of fragments and comments. We note the features of Bunin’s poetics, reflect on what new the writer contributed to the development of this topic, how he understands love and how he depicts feelings.
III. Conversation on the story “Easy Breathing” (1916)
- How is the story structured? What are the features of the composition?
(The composition of the story is such that we immediately learn about the tragically cut short life of the young schoolgirl Olya Meshcherskaya: her portrait with joyful, amazingly lively eyes" is embedded in the "oak cross, strong, heavy, smooth" on her grave. Bunin begins and ends the story at of this tombstone cross. The peculiarity of the composition is its circular character.)
— How do the plot and plot of a story relate?
(The plot of the story is a banal everyday drama. The author turned this banal incident into a story about mysterious attractiveness, charm, vitality femininity, embodied in the image of Olya. At the center of the plot - easy breathing femininity. It is ephemeral and fragile, when faced with real world, real people, it disappears, it is simply interrupted, as the Cossack officer “deceived” by Olya did.)
(The author highlights the main thing in the heroine - “grace, elegance, dexterity”, which distinguished her from the entire gymnasium. The heroine’s eyes are mentioned several times in the text: “joyful, amazingly alive”, “clear shine of eyes”, “shining eyes”, “ her eyes shine so immortally,” “Oli’s pure gaze” affects everyone, it is sincere, natural, because “no one has been loved like that.” junior classes, like her.” “Childishness” in the heroine speaks of her inner purity and spontaneity.)
- Which compositional technique does Bunin use in the story?
(Main reception- antithesis, opposition. Olya’s “light breathing” is contrasted with the everyday vulgar world, the “strong, heavy” cross on her grave; the handsome aristocrat Malyutin, who seduced Olya, to the ugly plebeian Cossack officer; the turbulent life and early female experience of the heroine - a fictional life cool lady, a middle-aged girl.")
— How do you understand the title of the story?
(Discussion.)
Teacher's comments
Bunin himself explained the title this way: “Such naivety and lightness in everything, both in audacity and in death, is “light breathing,” “bewilderment.” From the heroine's diary we learn about the fateful day that determined her fate. The day began promisingly: “I had a feeling that I would live forever and be as happy as anyone.” The last lines of the entry: “I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m crazy, I never thought I was like this! Now I have only one way out... I feel such disgust for him that I can’t survive it!..” - they cut off the day that had begun so happily. After this, it is clear why “Olya Meshcherskaya went completely crazy with fun during her last winter, as they said in the gymnasium.” This clarification, “as they said in the gymnasium,” refers to the external impression that Olya made on those around her. The heroine seems to be in a hurry to live, in a hurry to be happy, and wants to seem carefree. “It seemed” does not mean “was” carefree and happy. As her executioner, Olya chooses an “ugly and plebeian-looking, who had absolutely nothing in common with the circle to which” she belonged, a Cossack officer. She seems to be taking revenge on herself for that summer day when her father’s handsome, elegant, youthful friend, smelling of English cologne, made her a woman. Despite her “female” experience, Olya retained purity and naturalness, “a light breath” that “dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold autumn wind.”
V. Discussion of the story “Mitya’s Love” (1925)
Telling a story sublime and deep tragic love, painful love. A feeling of the catastrophic nature of existence, the fragility of human relationships and existence itself, doom loving person loneliness enhances the feeling of the catastrophic nature of the era, discord in society, and social cataclysms. Bunin emphasizes the constant contrast in life: on the one hand, the purity of the soul, the sincerity of feelings, on the other, the imperfection of the surrounding world, life that rejects true feelings.
— How does the state of nature in the story correlate with the state of the hero?
(The beginning of the story is a description of the “last happy day"Mitya's love. Mitya’s happiness, according to the state of nature, is the sun, spring, larks, warmth, drops, everything shines and rejoices. But “a frantic desire, a demand for happiness” is accompanied by a premonition of trouble, Mitya feels: “something has happened or is about to happen and that he is dead, missing!” In the final chapters, “inexplicable anxiety” grows - and the rain pours from morning to evening, mixing as if with Mitya’s tears, “it was cold, piercingly damp, dark from the clouds.” The gloomy coloring intensifies: “it began to get dark quickly”; “the rain was noisy everywhere,” and Mitya was seized by “an inexplicable, ever-growing horror.” He suddenly realizes “that the world is so monstrously hopeless and gloomy, just as it cannot be in the underworld, beyond the grave.” The rudeness, indifference and mercilessness of life are all the more terrible because the memories of “beautiful love in that most beautiful spring world, which so recently was like paradise,” are too vivid. The hero’s love-pain is “so strong, so unbearable” that death seems like a welcome deliverance from the horrors of life.)
VI. Discussion of stories from the collection “Dark Alleys” (1937-1944)
Teacher's explanation:
Bunin considered this collection his highest creative achievement. Most of the stories were written during the war years, when the need for love, a feeling that spiritualizes life, as opposed to the death-bringing war, was especially acute. For example, the story " Cold autumn", written in 1944, takes us back to the events of the First World War.
- What is the meaning of the title of the story?
(The title of the story has a double meaning: an autumn evening is described, and Fet’s poems (“What a cold autumn!”) are recalled, coinciding in their elegiac, sad mood with the state of the heroes. “Cold autumn” destroyed their destinies.)
— How is time depicted in the story?
(The main place in the story is occupied by the description of one evening, the farewell evening before the hero’s departure for the front. This evening is remembered to the smallest detail: “windows fogged up from steam”, “small silk bag” (amulet), “Swiss cape”, “pure icy stars "
The second part of the story presents a description of the events that have occurred in the thirty years since the death of the hero. The events of these years could form the content of an entire novel: revolution, famine, civil war, flight from Russia, wanderings around different countries, - however, they are spoken of briefly, briefly, as something insignificant.)
— How does Bunin portray the love of the heroes?
(As often happens in Bunin’s stories, love is just an insight, a bright flash, “ sunstroke”, which affects heroes throughout their lives, love always ends unexpectedly, by the will of people, fate or circumstances. Already at the beginning of the story there is a premonition of trouble, which the heroes hide from each other. They keep “their secret thoughts and feelings” to themselves so as not to hurt others. War interferes with life and breaks it. But love never dies. The main event in the heroine’s life remains that farewell evening: “that’s all that happened in my life - the rest is an unnecessary dream.”)
- What are the narration features of the story?
(The peculiarity of the story is that it is told on behalf of the heroine, written in the form of her memories, which gives the story authenticity and sincerity. The heroes are nameless, and this brings a general meaning to the story. The humanistic pathos of the story in depicting the unnaturalness, inhumanity, cruelty of war, destroying destinies of people.
This story combines three main themes of Bunin’s work - homeland, love and death.)
A skilled master of words beautifully expressed his thoughts, competently built his own beliefs and excellently conveyed to the listener all the splendor of Russian nature, enchanting with its extraordinary colors and landscapes. Bunin touched on many topics in his creative masterpieces - love for the motherland, peasant life, absurdity revolutionary upheavals in Russia, the tragic ending of human existence and the passionate relationship of loving hearts.
Each work by Ivan Alekseevich awakens certain feelings, the reader is inspired by the author’s frankness and experiences spiritually along with the main characters, as if getting used to the role of fictional people. All fans of the work of the great Russian writer find something dear and soulful in Bunin’s works.
Ivan Bunin was an excellent writer and an extraordinary poet. Picturesque descriptions natural phenomena, painful experiences for home country, inspired slogans and longing for a beloved woman... All these topics tell each new generation about important, vital things that cannot be ignored and are difficult to forget. You need to read the works of a talented Russian writer with special care; only in this way can you understand all the sincerity and truthfulness of human life.
Works of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
The unique writer left behind many literary works: melodious poems, intriguing stories, impressive romance and copious prose. The author was often involved in translation activities, so in the list of his works you can also find famous novels foreign writers, the plot of which Russian readers were able to familiarize themselves with thanks to the professionally performed work of Ivan Alekseevich. Bunin's works are interesting and educational for everyone. His stories are read with pleasure by schoolchildren while studying the work of the great Russian author according to the program. Among his fans are many middle-aged and mature people. These people who lived long life, are inspired by the humanity and frankness of Ivan Alekseevich. The author was often interested in philosophy, loved to think about life and death, as if he was trying to look beyond the boundaries of existence. He expressed his thoughts in his works.
The writer was concerned about many problems of humanity. He rooted for his country with all his soul and saw the disastrous consequences for his homeland provoked by the revolutionary process. He was always oppressed by the injustice towards poor peasants living in meager villages and often in need of the bare necessities.
Bunin's stories
Bunin openly described all his experiences in stories. IN creative works he touched on many topics that are quite close to every citizen of our country. The most intriguing stories of the famous Russian writer, with a fascinating storyline, were published in the unique collection “Dark Alleys”.“Dark Alleys” was written far from his homeland, on French soil, during the period of Ivan Alekseevich’s emigration. The first book was published in 1943. It consists of three parts, almost all the stories from this magnificent collection are devoted to the theme of love.
Part 1:
✔"Caucasus"
✔"Ballad"
✔"Styopa"
✔“Muse”
✔“Late hour”
Part 2:
✔"Rusya"
✔“Beauty”
✔“Fool”
✔"Antigone"
✔"Smaragd"
✔"Guest"
✔"Wolves"
✔“Business cards”
✔"Zoyka and Valeria"
✔"Tanya"
✔“In Paris”
✔"Galya Ganskaya"
✔"Henry"
✔"Natalie"
Part 3:
✔“In a familiar street”
✔"River Inn"
✔“Kuma”
✔“The Beginning”
✔"Oaks"
✔“Young Lady Clara”
✔"Madrid"
✔“Second coffee pot”
✔“Iron wool”
✔"Cold Autumn"
✔"Steamboat "Saratov""
✔"Raven"
✔"Camargue"
✔“One hundred rupees”
✔"Revenge">
✔"Swing"
✔« Clean Monday»
✔“Chapel”
✔“In the spring, in Judea”
✔"Overnight"
In addition to the stories from the collection “Dark Alleys,” Ivan Alekseevich wrote others famous works, impressive with an original storyline, vivid storytelling and sharpness of thought.
Story “Dark Alleys”, summary
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin wrote his favorite story in 1938. The plot is based on the theme of love, and the main literary direction is made in the style of neorealism. For the first time, the work was published in the publication " New land"(New York) in 1943. The main character of the story “Dark Alleys” is a sixty-year-old man, Nikolai Alekseevich. He was a military man, had a wife and son, and in the past, he had a beloved woman named Nadezhda, but due to certain circumstances, their relationship did not work out.
The former lover, a 48-year-old woman, was the owner of an inn. Nadezhda sincerely loved Nikolai Alekseevich, and even the fact of betrayal on his part (after all, he was the initiator of the breakup) did not affect her feelings. All her life she remained devoted to her loved one, so she never got married.
The work also features the character Klim, who serves as Nikolai Alekseevich’s coachman.
Main storyline the story is built on a chance meeting of two ex-lovers people. Their sudden conversation, after thirty years of separation, awakens frankness. The hero admits to Nadezhda that all these years he has been deeply unhappy and regrets what he did in his youth. Only now did he admit to her, and to himself, that at that moment he had lost the most precious thing that could have been in his life. Comparing all the events of the past and present, Nikolai Alekseevich thinks about how his fate could have developed if he had not abandoned the woman he loved and built a married life with her.
In this story, the author reflects on the most serious problem of humanity - love, open and passionate, jealous and tragic, joyful and painful... Is time subject to real feelings? Can years erase real feelings from the memory and heart of a person in love? Or do the passing years leave only a trace of pleasant memories that often warm a person’s soul in unhappy times? The reader can get an answer to all these questions if he reads the romantic and somewhat tragic work of I.A. Bunin - “Dark Alleys”.
The story “Clean Monday”, summary
In 1944, Bunin wrote another interesting story, which was also included in the collection “Dark Alleys” - “Clean Monday”. This work also belongs to neorealism and has love story. The antithesis is clearly visible here, artistic technique, aimed at a detailed contrast of the images of the main characters, their everyday life, spirituality and other important aspects. The main character of the story is a daringly handsome and young man from the Penza province. He's in love with beautiful girl. The work is based on heartfelt story this person.
His beloved, a beautiful dark-skinned girl with dark hair and black eyes, lives in a rented apartment in Moscow. In the final part of the story, she goes to the monastery. It is about this damn beautiful and charming heroine that the young man tells his love story.
Their romantic relationship formed into big city. The young man gave his beloved gifts and flowers, they spent a lot of time together, went to concerts, restaurants and the theater.
The young people were a wonderful couple; they looked spectacular with each other. He is handsome and cheerful guy, outwardly similar to an Italian macho. She is a silent, but quite intelligent beauty, whose appearance was comparable to the features of Persian and Indian girls.
The young man was inspired by her beauty and grace, but he was always oppressed by her indifference towards him. It seemed that only love and respect for her lived in her heart. to my own father, and the dear chosen one was like an addition to everyday life the main character.
One day, a young man proposed to his beloved, but received a refusal in response. Despite this, he waited and believed that her indifference would sooner or later disappear, and instead of this ridiculous feeling, true love would awaken in the heart of the chosen one.
Their relationship continued, and soon, during a visit to the Novodevichy Convent, which happened on Forgiveness Sunday, the girl reveals her secret to her lover. She is sincerely passionate about the life of the monastery, often visits religious institutions and even dreams of leaving everyday life in this world. The guy is confused, he did not expect such confessions from his bride.
At the end of the story, the young man describes her sudden departure to the city of Tver. She told the young man about her decision early in the morning; it was their last meeting outside the monastery. The guy longed for his beloved for a long time, led a dissolute lifestyle, and often visited taverns. This separation seemed to erase his entire life. She went to the monastery, and it is no longer possible to return her to her arms.
Years later, on Clean Monday, he will visit the Archangel Cathedral, where, among the marching nuns of the religious procession, he will notice the charming dark eyes of his beloved...
This story amazes the reader with the depth of the themes explored, forcing each of us to think about the meaning of human and spiritual life. Main character made her choice, giving pure and bright love in exchange for religious beliefs. An intriguing storyline will appeal to every reader who respects sincere feelings love and free choice of a person.
Love is a feeling about which in Russian classical literature a lot has been said. Some of the authors touched on the topic of love in passing. But there were also those who boldly walked towards it, devoting their creativity to its mysterious and incomprehensible aspects. The most mysterious and ambiguous human emotions are dedicated to love. The list of these works is a gallery of beautiful poetic stories that, as a rule, have a sad and touching outcome.
"Dark Alleys"
The problem of love in Bunin's stories lies in the fleeting and impermanent nature of this feeling. A love story becomes tragic when feelings were fleeting for one of its participants. So, in the story “Dark Alleys,” an elderly military man, accidentally stopping by, meets his former love there, whom he does not immediately recognize. Many years have passed since their last meeting. She became the mistress of the inn, a hard and cold woman. But she wasn't always like this. What made her this way were unrequited feelings for Nikolai Alekseevich - that same military man, her occasional guest. The man who cruelly abandoned her thirty years ago.
In his youth, he read her lyric poems “Dark Alleys,” and she called him Nikolenka. Now he admits that he has never been happy for a minute of his life. But nothing can be corrected, and Nikolai Alekseevich leaves the inn with a heavy heart and with vague, disturbing memories.
"Caucasus"
The motive of love in Bunin's stories is often associated with betrayal, which leads a person to tragic ending. The story “Caucasus,” on the one hand, shows the happiness of two lovers. On the other hand, there is the tragedy of a deceived husband. This story says little about him. The reader only knows that this is a tough and determined person. In the eyes of a frivolous wife, he appears as a hindrance and an annoying obstacle on the path to happiness. But at that moment, when the lovers are exhausted from passion, this “hard man” realizes that he has been betrayed and commits suicide.
Bunin describes the emotions of the deceived husband and his death sparingly and dispassionately. The happy experiences of the wife and her lover are depicted against the backdrop of a colorful southern landscape. This literary device creates a sharp contrast between happiness and tragedy, which are born equally from love.
"Styopa"
They tell how unattainable human happiness can be. better stories Bunin about love. Summary The story “Styopa” creates the impression of a familiar plot. But art forms, characteristic of the author, allow us to see in classical history about the “poor dishonored girl” new shades.
The young merchant Krasilshchikov, arriving at a familiar room, finds the owner’s daughter alone. The father went to the city. The merchant, taking advantage of the situation, becomes close to the girl. For him, this story is an entertaining adventure, which he happily forgets about after two days. For her - hope for happiness. The story does not show the tragedy of a simple girl. Only her hopes and dreams are present here, creating the opposite of the indifference and frivolity of the main character.
"Muse"
The world of men and the world of women in Ivan Bunin are in constant antagonism. Bunin's narration is characterized by a sharp change in the hero's life circumstances, which is not a consequence of any events. Changes in the character's life occur under the influence of his feelings for a woman, who often has the image of a selfish and eccentric nature. To the question of what kind of love in Bunin’s stories does not have a sad ending, one can answer unequivocally: there is no such love. The writer did not pay attention to the life-affirming power of this feeling.
The main character will not suffer a mortal fate, which is how Bunin’s stories about love often end. A summary of the misadventures of the protagonist of the short story “Muse” comes down to a description life together with your beloved and separation from her, which comes as suddenly as the meeting. An unexpected separation leaves him in confusion and leaves him feeling empty.
The narration is told in the first person. Main character takes painting lessons, but does not show any interest in fine arts any abilities. From the short introduction that precedes the introduction to the heroine, who has the symbolic name Muse, the reader concludes that the narrator is not a strong-willed person. He is unable to influence the course of events in his life. One day the Muse appears to him, drags him along, his life changes. But when the girl-muse loses interest in him, another, equally weak-willed character takes his place.
"Late Hour"
Bunin's prose is characterized by the catastrophic nature of existence, a feeling of loneliness and the illusory nature of happiness. Undoubtedly, these features were a consequence difficult fate author, although there are no direct autobiographical references in his work.
During the years when the story “The Late Hour” was written, the writer was abroad. The work is dedicated to memories of a long-past love that accompany the author during his journey through hometown. Walking along the bridge, the bazaar and Monastery Square, he restores lost images in his memory. Past and present are united into one whole. This whole becomes the awareness of the perishability of all life on earth. The logical conclusion of a trip through the city is a cemetery. In the story, it is a symbol of the fragility of love. In this cemetery there is the grave of his beloved. An analysis of Bunin's stories about love allows us to see the connection between the writer's lyrical motives and nostalgia and awareness of the frailty of existence.
"Fool"
Tragic love in Bunin's stories is not always beautiful. And sometimes it can be compared rather to an animal passion, which can only be experienced by a person who is extremely narcissistic and selfish. At the center of the story “The Fool” is a very immoral and hypocritical person.
The master's son spends the summer with his parents. As a student at a theological seminary, he demonstrates brilliant success in his studies. At the same time, his spiritual and moral world exceptionally poor. Taking advantage of the irresponsibility of the foolish cook, he took possession of her: “She couldn’t even scream out of fear.” The impunity of these actions led to the young man repeating them more than once. Eventually the cook gave birth to a boy. But the appearance of the child, as well as the appearance of the “fool” herself, depressed the owner’s son, and he ordered her to be driven out of the yard. Since then, she wandered the streets with her son, begging for alms “for Christ’s sake.”
The hypocrisy and cruelty of the main character acquires a particularly strong effect because he has clergy and is a minister of the church. The story is simple, but thanks to Ivan Bunin’s unique style, it evokes strong feelings in the reader. The wanderings of the young mother are not complemented by tearful emotions, but are described very briefly and laconically. The author says only a few words about the child: “He was a freak, but when he smiled, he was very sweet.”
"Antigone"
This story from the collection "Dark Alleys" tells of mutual passion. A young student is visiting his close relatives. Uncle is a general, chained to In his house young man boring and dreary. Out of boredom, he indulges in fantasies, comparing himself to Pushkin’s Onegin. But he doesn’t straighten the general’s pillows or bring him medicine. These responsibilities lie with the nurse - a beautiful young lady.
Passion is born at first sight. But the student cannot meet the girl. She is somewhere close, her room is behind the wall, but still the girl is not yet available. One fine day she appears in his room, and the next morning the general’s nephew meets him in her bed. The connection is instantly discovered, and the young woman has no choice but to leave the estate. What did this fleeting relationship become for her? Passion? Falling in love? The peculiarities of Bunin's stories about love are, first of all, understatement and mystery. The reader has to find the answers to some questions himself.
"Business cards"
Bunin's stories about love reflect the diverse palette of human feelings. List love stories include stories about a fateful feeling, and about selfish passion, and about fleeting attraction. Relationships with random companions are discussed in the story “Business Cards.”
He - famous writer. She is a poor, simple-hearted girl. Her husband, in her own words, is a kind man and completely uninteresting. The feeling that life is wasted pushes a young woman to love adventures. Her naivety and inexperience touch and attract the writer. The life of this woman is so monotonous and gray that after meeting and briefly communicating with a handsome and famous person she is ready to indulge in simple, unromantic debauchery in order to give her existence at least some bright colors. Which is what happens in her cabin. At the end of the story, she appears before the reader in a different form: “quiet, with drooping eyelashes.”
"Zoyka and Valeria"
Bunin devotes stories about love to an all-consuming and sometimes deadly feeling. List of characters " Dark alleys” is not easy to compile, since many of them are faceless. In the foreground in the stories of this cycle is not a person with characteristic appearance and habits, but a feeling that governs his actions. Georges Levitsky is one of the few characters who is not without a name and appearance.
He is thoughtful, melancholic, messy. Love comes to him not with the appearance of his chosen one, but much earlier. He is waiting for this feeling, but to whom it will be addressed, at the beginning of the story he does not yet know. Whether it will be the daughter of Georges’ colleague, or a distant relative, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that one day Valeria appears, and it is to her that this nervous and sensual character directs all the power of his experiences. Valeria, like many other Bunin heroines, is impartial and cold. Her indifference prompts the main character of the story “Zoika and Valeria” to commit suicide.
"Tanya"
Some of Bunin's stories about love have a hidden historical background. The list of stories dedicated to happiness is complemented by the story “Tanya”. Here we are talking about the love between a small landowner's maid and a certain young man. All that is known about him is that Tanya affectionately called him Petrusha and he led a chaotic and wandering life. One autumn night, he took possession of her. At first this scared the girl, but later the fear faded into the background, and in its place affection began to grow and develop. But they are not destined to be together. Their last meeting took place in February of the terrible seventeenth year.
"In Paris"
In emigration, people feel sadness and loneliness more than ever. It was in such an atmosphere that Bunin's stories about love were created. The list of works of those years includes the short story “In Paris”. The main character is a former Russian army officer forced to leave his homeland. In a small Russian restaurant, he meets a waitress - a woman of Russian origin. The fates of these two people were crippled by the revolution. They are united by loneliness, the desire to love and be loved. The lives of these characters, so alien against the backdrop of the Parisian cityscape, begin to make sense again. But Bunin’s love cannot last long. It, like a flash, lights up and goes out again. The main character of the story “In Paris” suddenly dies in a subway car.
"Henry"
In this story, Ivan Bunin created an image of the Don Juan type. At the center of the story is the writer Glebov. His life is full of lies. He is surrounded by women, but does not feel affection for them. With the exception of one - a translator and journalist writing under the pseudonym Heinrich. But even with this lady, he is insincere when he tells her that she is only a faithful friend and an understanding interlocutor for him. In reality, Glebov is overcome with jealousy. After all, Heinrich also has a person to whom she lies and whom she uses in her whole. The climax is a small newspaper article from which main character learns about the death of his beloved. Analysis of Bunin's stories about love demonstrates Bunin's special style. Poetic artistic style, with the help of which the author conveys the emotions of the lovers, contrasts with the dry newspaper style with which the death of the heroine of this story is reported. A similar technique is found in other works of Bunin.
Motives for separation and death
“Dark and Gloomy Alleys” contains love in Bunin’s stories. The author himself briefly spoke about these works in this spirit. Hence the name of the famous cycle. The life of Ivan Bunin's heroes acquires meaning only with the advent of deep feeling. But love in his works has a fleeting and tragic character. As a rule, relationships between a man and a woman end in death or separation. This pessimistic view is due to the personal tragedy of the author, who was forced to live alone for many years abroad.
Russian writer Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, who died in Paris in 1953, was not during his lifetime famous writer in the usual sense of this concept. His name never became a sign literary direction, “school” or just fashion. Awarding the title of honorary academician to I. A. Bunin in 1909 Imperial Academy science, in the eyes of progressive readers, in itself at that time could not arouse sympathy for him. Among the democratic intelligentsia, the dignified refusal of Chekhov and Korolenko from this honorary title in connection with Nicholas II’s cancellation of the Academy’s decision to confer the same title on M. Gorky was still memorable. Exactly the same Nobel Prize, awarded to Bunin in 1933 - an action that, of course, had an unambiguously tendentious, political character - artistic value Bunin's works were only a pretext there - naturally, it could not contribute to the popularity of the writer's name in his homeland.
During Bunin’s entire long writing life, there was only one period when attention to him went beyond the limits of intraliterary talk - with the appearance of his story “The Village” in 1910. Much has been written about “The Village,” like none of Bunin’s books either before or after this story. But this exceptional case in Bunin’s biography cannot be overestimated. From here it was still a long way from what is called the fame of a writer, meaning not the semi-legendary lifetime fame of Tolstoy or Gorky, but at least the extensive and noisy interest among readers that the works of Bunin’s literary peers - L. Andreev or A. Kuprin - received in their time .
Bunin is only now gaining among us the great reader that his truly rare gift deserves, although the ideas, problems and the very material of reality, which served as the basis for his poetry and prose, already belong to history.
The five-volume collected works of I. A. Bunin (very incomplete and imperfect), published several years ago, with a circulation of two hundred and fifty thousand copies - a cosmic figure in comparison with foreign circulations of Bunin's publications - has long been sold out. In addition, single-volume prose books were published, Bunin's "Poems" were published in the large and small series of the "Poet's Library", separate editions of Longfellow's poem "Hiawatha" in its classic translation - they can no longer be found in bookstores. All this, of course, speaks, first of all, about the unprecedented, in the sense not only quantitative, growth of the reading army in the poet’s homeland, which he once abandoned in fear of the destructive power of the revolution, of the trampling of the shrines of culture and art that he imagined by it, of general savagery. And these facts also testify to the principles of the new, socialist culture, which excludes in relation to authentic works art, any semblance of a vengeful feeling towards their authors, who once turned away from it and even reduced themselves to petty, philistinely embittered judgments about it.
The fact that, as stated, fame did not come to Bunin during his lifetime, does not mean, however, that he did not have a significant circle of readers and admirers. The current recognition of his enormous talent, the significance of his contribution and merits in the development of Russian prose and poetry is not a discovery of our time. And during his lifetime, Bunin enjoyed the respect of even such of his contemporaries as Blok and Bryusov, whose aesthetic views and he himself completely rejected creative practice. Chekhov, adored by Bunin, with his characteristic restraint, but very favorably assessed the still very young Bunin and bestowed upon him a friendly disposition. But Bunin received absolutely exceptional attention from M. Gorky. M. Gorky has the highest ratings, the most generous praise for Bunin’s talent that has ever been attributed to him.
Until the end of his days, M. Gorky, in his printed and oral statements, invariably mentioned Bunin’s name among the largest names in Russian literature, and strongly advised young writers to study with him. As a human being, he loved Bunin very much, although he knew his “lordly neurasthenia” and was upset by his inability to direct his talent “where it was needed.”
In Gorky's letters to Bunin, something deeply touching appears every now and then, full of thrifty tenderness and admiration - right down to a selfless readiness to recognize his primacy in art. “Just know that your poems, your prose are a holiday for the Chronicle and for me,” Gorky wrote to him in 1916. - This is not an empty word. I love you - don't laugh, please. I love reading your things, thinking and talking about you. In my very hectic and very difficult life, you, perhaps, and even probably, are the best, the most significant... You are for me great poet, the first poet of our days."
Let a certain degree of these assessments be attributed to, so to speak, the breadth of nature and inclination to the hobbies of the great collector and educator of literary forces. But, perhaps, none of Gorky’s many “hobbies” was so long-lasting and lasting. Bunin responded to him with an expression of gratitude and friendly devotion.
“In our relationships, in our meetings with you, we felt these moments - that which is real, what makes people live and what gives unforgettable joy. I hug you and kiss you tightly - a kiss of fidelity, friendship and gratitude that will forever remain in me, and I beg you to believe the truth of these poorly spoken words!
Only many years after their paths diverged forever in 1917, Bunin would call his friendship with Gorky “strange”, and in his literary will, asking not to print or publish his letters, he would make an unexpected confession: “I wrote letters almost always badly, carelessly, hastily and not always in accordance with what I felt - due to various circumstances (one of many examples is letters to Gorky...).”
But this is already a special feature of the old Bunin, who corrected the old Bunin and renounced the connections and sympathies of his best time.
Unfortunately, we have not yet published a single significant monographic work dedicated to I. A. Bunin, his artistic experience, which to a large extent affected the culture of modern Russian prose and poetry. But it can be argued that this experience was not in vain for many of our masters, marked - each in their own way - by their loyalty to the classical traditions of Russian realism. Of course, neither Sholokhov, nor Fedin, nor Paustovsky, nor Sokolov-Mikitov, mastering Bunin’s experience in their literary youth, coupled with all the wealth of the classical heritage, and highly appreciating the art of this master, could share his ideological views, his well-known pessimistic moods.
The same can be said about the younger generation Soviet writers, first of all, about Yu. Kazakov, on whose stories the influence of Bunin’s writing was felt, perhaps, to the most obvious extent. Of the very young, novice prose writers who are feeling their way not without the help of Bunin, I would like to name V. Belov and V. Likhonosov. But the circle of writers and poets whose work is in one way or another marked by kinship with Bunin’s aesthetic precepts is, of course, much wider. In my own work I owe a lot to I.A. Bunin, who was one of the most powerful hobbies of my youth.
In a word, Bunin today is not some kind of academic figure to whom tribute is paid from time to time. It is precisely these days that it is becoming more and more wide circle readers, his most valuable and unconditional artistic principles are a real, effective part of a living and complex modern literary process.
Speaking about Bunin, one cannot help but start with the main circumstance of his literary and everyday fate, which is for many years also determined the certain paucity of statements made by our critics about this artist, who usually consider him separately, outside the range of classical masters of Russian literature late XIX- the first half of the 20th century, and the vagueness and fragmentation of ideas about it until recently among readers. Not everyone who remembered him in the 20s and 30s from the books of his collected works in the appendix to the pre-revolutionary Niva even knew that this writer was still alive, but lives in exile, and among what he wrote over these decades there are wonderful works, but there were many that could only cause regret about the fate of the artist.