Iwan Alexejewitsch Bunin Books

The gentleman from San Francisco, whose name was forgotten in Capri and Naples, was embarking on a two-year journey to the Old World with his wife and daughter. He felt entitled to this break, believing he had earned the right to enjoy life after years of hard work. At fifty-eight, he considered himself just beginning to truly live, having previously only existed, albeit comfortably, with his aspirations set on the future. His relentless work in the factories employing thousands of Chinamen had brought him success, and he now felt he had reached the status of his ideals, prompting him to take a pause for leisure. Like many of his peers, he planned to start his enjoyment with a trip to Europe, India, or Egypt. He was eager to reward himself for his labor, but also wanted his family to share in these experiences. While his wife lacked notable sensitivities, she was a passionate traveler, a trait common among elderly American women. His daughter, no longer young and somewhat fragile, needed the journey for her health, and he believed that travel often led to serendipitous encounters, like sitting next to a multimillionaire at dinner or admiring frescoes together.

This volume includes stories written over a period of forty-five years by Ivan Bunin (1870-1953), a major Russian prose writer and poet. The book opens with one of his best known early stories "Apple Fragrance". While poeticising the country estate life into which he had been born and which he loved for its lingering beauty even in its decline and impoverishment, Bunin was not blind to the shortcomings of this life. The theme that runs through his entire work is the theme of love. The boldness with which he describes love is combined with a classic clarity and perfection of verbal form, a style which was entirely novel and Bunin's own, and in which he remains unsurpassed. Included in this volume are his masterpieces "Light Breathing", "The Last Rendezvous", "Chang's Dreams", "Mitya's Love", "Sunstroke", and the stories from the book Shadowed Paths "Heinrich", "Tania", "Natalie", and others.

Set against the backdrop of Moscow and Odessa in 1918 and 1919 these are the great anti-Bolshevik diaries of Ivan Bunin, the first Russian to be awarded the Nobel prize for literature. Originally published in 1936 but banned during the Soviet period, these diaries are now translated into English for the first time by the distinguished Professor of Russian History at the University of Notre Dame, Thomas Gaiton Marullo. Bunin despised the Bolsheviks, whom he believed were ruining his beloved country. In these diaries he recreates the time of revolution and civil war with graphic and gripping immediacy. His uncompromising truths are jolting. His pain and suffering in watching the overthrow of his country by ¿thugs¿ and the chaos of civil war, and his fears for the devastation of ¿patriarchal¿ Russian culture, consumed his days and receive vivid expression in his diaries. An original and important contribution to our understanding of this tumultuous period by a master of prose and a perceptive social critic.

In this second volume of his major work on Bunin, the neglected master of Russian letters, Thomas Marullo recreates his life in exile, chiefly in Paris, after escaping from his newly bolshevized country in 1920. Drawing from Bunin's correspondence, his diaries, and his stories, and translating most of these materials into English for the first time, Mr. Marullo gives us a vivid picture of a man suddenly and agonizingly without a country. Bunin's life and art, which depended so heavily on traditional Russian values, seemed to be overthrown in a moment, and the writer found himself marooned amidst Western culture, clinging to his old ideals. Through his writings we are also provided a window on the lively but despairing and often fractious community of Russian emigrés in Paris in the twenties, which included Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff Chafiapin, Prokofiev, Chagall, Kandinsky, Pavlova, Diaghilev, and Zamyatin. The volume ends in 1933, when Bunin became the first Russian to receive the Nobel Prize in literature. Mr. Marullo's first volume, Ivan Russian Requiem , was widely acclaimed. Gary Saul Morson of Northwestern "It engages the reader from the first page ...Marullo has an eye for the perfect quotation." Ruth Rischin, in the Russian Review , described the book as "elegantly crafted... a serious achievement."

Ivan Bunin, the first Russian Nobel laureate in Literature, is celebrated for his prose but has been overlooked in the realm of poetry. Despite receiving critical acclaim and honors like the Pushkin Prize, his poetic works have not garnered the attention they deserve. Esteemed contemporaries such as Blok, Gorky, and Nabokov recognized the quality of his poetry, highlighting its significance in the literary landscape. This book seeks to bring Bunin's poetic contributions to light, emphasizing their importance alongside his more recognized prose.

Die frühen, zwischen 1890 und 1909 publizierten Erzählungen spiegeln die literarische Entwicklung Bunins von seinen noch fast jugendlichen Anfängen bis zu der Zeit, als er in Russland bereits ein angesehener Autor war, der 1909 den prestigeträchtigen Puschkin-preis erhielt und Ehrenmitglied der Akademie wurde. Die vorliegenden Erzählungen zeigen mit großer Schärfe die tiefen wirtschaftlichen Probleme, den Hunger, den Niedergang des kleinen Adels, die erzwungene Auswanderung zahlreicher Bauern. Doch richtet sich der Blick unvoreingenommen auf die Menschen selbst, auf die manchmal skurrilen Landbewohner, die kleinen Momente von Glück und Trauer.

Iwan Bunin ist in den 1920er-Jahren der wohl berühmteste russische Emigrationsschriftsteller in Paris. Die meisten der Erzählungen im Band Der Sonnenstich aber spielen in Russland. Bei einem leicht nostalgischen Unterton weisen sie eine meisterhafte epische Tiefe auf. An der ambivalenten Liebe zumeist junger Männer zu souveränen, eigenwilligen Frauen zeigen sich die Grenzen der Beherrschbarkeit des Lebens. Die Erzählung »Mitjas Liebe«, die Rilke und Thomas Mann faszinierte, zeichnet die Psychologie der unglücklichen Verliebtheit eines jungen Mannes nach. Fast noch paradoxer, elementarer zeigt sich die Liebe in der brillanten Geschichte von »Kornett Jelagin«, der vor Gericht steht, weil er eine Frau umgebracht haben soll. »Der Sonnenstich« schließlich erzählt von einer flüchtigen, rätselhaften Liebesaffäre auf einer Wolgareise.

Quer durch Europa, Asien und Afrika, durch Meere und über Berge - Iwan Bunin nimmt uns mit auf eine philosophisch-poetische Reise. Den bloßen Weg versieht er mit romantischen und emotionsreichen Gedankeneinschüben zur mystischen Vergangenheit, der Bibel und dem Koran. Mit außerordentlicher Stilsicherheit und Erzählgabe beschwört Bunin ein atemberaubendes Bild fremder Länder und unstillbares Fernweh. »Das Reisen ist nicht nur die Erfahrung des Anderen und des ganz Großen - es ist die Erweiterung des Ichs ebenso wie die Erfahrung der eigenen Winzigkeit und Vergänglichkeit.« Thomas Grob in seinem Nachwort zu ›Der Sonnentempel‹.

1913 – das Jahr vor der Weltkriegskatastrophe – fiel in die Zeit boomender russischer Großstädte und der unge­ lösten Fragen in der russischen Provinz. Russlands Weiten sind geprägt von Niedergang und diffuser Erwartung. Auf der Höhe seiner Erzählgewalt verfolgt Iwan Bunin sein li­terarisches Großprojekt, das Bild dieser Welt zu zeichnen.Der Bauer, der zur Unzeit sein Getreide verkaufen sollte, oder derjenige, der seinem Herrn Geschichten von Gewalt gegen Gutsbesitzer erzählt, der Seminarist, der sich für etwas Besseres hält, die brutal verprügelte Kupplerin, der in alle Geheimnisse eingeweihte Pferdedoktor, der missratene, gequälte Sohn, die Frau, die ihr Leben in der Erinnerung an einen jugendlichen Sommer voller Liebe verbringt, und nicht zuletzt der Städter, der kurz in seinem provinziellen Kindheitsort Halt macht – in all diesen und anderen Fi­guren, in jeder dieser präzisen wie poetischen, anrührenden Skizzen, findet sich ein Stück dieser Welt wieder.