The true and imaginary values in the image of Bunin are revealed to readers in the vast works of the great Russian writer, poet, prose writer and memoirist. He was born in 1870 in Voronezh.
When the name of this city is pronounced, it refers to the whole region of Russia, the so-called Chernozemye. This is a separate country. And this land gave the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a number of outstanding writers. This is Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, and Leo Tolstoy, and Athanasius Afanasevich Fet, and Nikolai Leskov.
All of them are somehow involved in this region, not only by birth, but mainly in those places that make up the scene in their books. And many topics of the stories of Bunin Ivan Alekseevich are related to the description of this land.
A thorough acquaintance with the Russian way of life of peasants
The influence of the Motherland on Bunin’s work was vast and diverse . Of great importance were the places where he spent his childhood and youth. These were the years of learning Russian life and comprehending the beauty of Russian nature. And the development of the national language, its element. It is from this that comprehension of peasant life begins.
Ivan Alekseevich works with them, goes to their gatherings and festivities. Records and collects fairy tales and songs. Here, in Ozerki, the comprehension of the tradition of a true living, rich national language begins, which, according to Bunin's definition, was formed in the middle lane. All this formed the basis of creativity and became a source of skill and inspiration.
The image of a modern person or characteristic features of a writer
Ivan Alekseevich looked very modern for those years. This is a slender, ironic, short-cut man. Its appearance resembles Nikolai Gumilyov, Rachmaninov, Bulgakov and many other figures of Russian culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, being modern in appearance, appearance and manners, he was a kind of archaist in literature.
Bunin did not seem to notice that the twentieth century had come. Writers, artists of this century write their works or paintings in a completely different way. The world in their work often loses its vitality and turns into a black square, as in the great painting by Kazimir Malevich. Ivan Alekseevich traditionalist. The true and imaginary values in the image of Bunin have a completely different character.
He writes as if the twentieth century in literature did not advance. In his works, everything is clear, plastic and wonderful to remember. And this is one of the unique, important features of Bunin's poetics.
The writer of the oldest family
Love for antiquity arose in Ivan Alekseevich, of course, not from scratch. This is due to the fact that his family was very ancient, but impoverished. This class belonged to many figures of Russian culture. For example, the great Zhukovsky, the author of famous ballads and poems, the Kireevsky brothers and many other famous personalities.
Bunin belonged to the Russian nobility. And at the same time, he belonged to that Russian modernity, when the role of the Russian nobility was questioned. He felt this duality of his origin, status for many years.
The elder brother of Ivan Alekseevich, who influenced his work
An important role in the life of Ivan Bunin was played by his older brother Julius, who was included in the turbulent modern events of that era, since he was related to populism. This is a revolutionary movement. It had different trends, options and solutions to key problems for Russia.
It was in this communication that little Ivan, then the young man learned that there were not only beautiful river spills and beautiful fruit-bearing gardens around, but there was also land on which people who felt unhappy live. A country on the verge of great and terrible changes.
The early work of young Ivan
Ivan Alekseevich began to write early. He composed his first poems at the age of eight. The main themes of Bunin, present in the early lyrics, are quite diverse. The motives are landscape and philosophical, about the fragility and insecurity of human life. The Creator himself, recalling his work and early poetry, called it sad.
It is in the cycle of time that he draws mood and colors for his subsequent verses, love of this world. And this is another motive of his works. But nevertheless, early poetry is distinguished by its saturation with realistic sketches and, of course, a rich palette of colors and sounds.
Variety of talents of writer and poet
Ivan Bunin is one of the relatively few Russian writers who wrote poetry and prose with equal success. He began as a poet in the eighties, and in 1901 he released his first collection, which is called "Poems."
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, whose theme of nature in his works preserves the images of classical poems by Pushkin and Lermontov, is a traditional poet, and in his work you can see the whole set of familiar paintings of Russian nature. He felt like the heir and successor of the great Russian classics. Bunin is the only writer of the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century who managed to bring poetry and prose language closer together.
Provincial life, failed marriage and first editions
Ivan Alekseevich was a provincial not only by birth. For many years of his life, he lived in the south of Russia with his brother Julius. There he became a journalist. It is with this work that his independent activity begins. At the same time, Bunin marries Varvara Pashchenko, and this unhappy and tragic marriage, hatred and love theme in Bunin's prose were reflected in his wonderful novel "The Life of Arseniev".
In the south, Ivan Alekseevich searches for himself, begins to write prose, stories, and it was at this time that the most remarkable event in his life was taking place. He met with Alexei Peshkov, who was already a very famous writer and organizer of literature. And the most famous of his brainchild was a series of collections of "Knowledge".
These thin books were issued especially for the people - the simple reader, since they were very inexpensive. Ivan Alekseevich printed his first prose works precisely in these brochures.
The true and imaginary values in the image of Bunin
Bunin was remembered by the reader for writing about the village and the life of ordinary people. It was with this theme that this great prose writer entered Russian literature. One of the most famous works of Ivan Alekseevich is the novel "The Village". She comes out in 1910.
This is a landmark thing for a writer. In it, he no longer reflects on the fate of the nobility, a class close to him socially, now the true values in the image of Bunin lie in the fate of the Russian people, and above all the Russian peasantry - a very mass stratum of society of that time.
In this story, Ivan Alekseevich very succinctly shows the inability and inability of the Russian man to live today. Rejoice at those small golden moments that life gives him. People always live tomorrow. Everyone hopes for happiness and a future. But life is fleeting, and no one knows what awaits him tomorrow. These are the true and imaginary values in the image of Bunin, as well as the main idea of this work.
The end of the Russian nobility
The end of the twentieth century is the plot of the collapse of many noble nests. This is a harsh and controversial process of breaking the usual way of life of the village. Bunin writes about this collapse of the cultural nests of the Russian nobility in many works, but the story Antonov Apples, which was published in 1900, was especially remembered by readers. Just at the turn of two centuries.
The appearance of this work gave rise to critics to determine the place of Ivan Alekseevich in modern Russian literature. For the first time, the idea of Antonov’s Apples appeared in the author’s simple, but very important, idea that the life and way of life of a nobleman is similar to that of a peasant. Ivan Alekseevich very subtly shows the destruction and departure from life of a moral atmosphere.
Very subtle and wonderful meaning of the story
This story is a kind of lyrical sketch. There are no characters here, but just a picture of the memories of one person who, seeing modern landscapes and paintings, mentally combines them with what is stored in his memory. In "Antonov apples" touched on the theme of life and death.
Bunin showed the inevitable cycle of events in nature, the continuity of generations, the stability and aroma of his native land, which, it would seem, nothing can break. And the storyteller in this small but wonderful work understands that from the previous life in fact only the aroma of Antonov apples remained.
A very striking feature of the character of the writer is the love of constant travel. And the wanderings of Ivan Alekseevich in different eastern and western countries not only led him to get acquainted with other cultures, carried away with other images and themes, but also gave rise to his special kind of activity. Bunin is a translator, and many of the works he translated are classical.
Ivan Alekseevich travels in the 1910s, and this turns out to be a kind of bridge between his wanderings in southern Russia in the late 80s and 90s and his future forced exile, years of emigration, when he left Russia forever.