It is hardly worth writing about the poetess Galina Kuznetsova. This name will not say anything to anyone except literary critics and art lovers I.A. Bunin. Allegedly adopted, but in fact - his mistress, she lived with Ivan Alekseevich and his wife in French Grasse and Paris. This strange "family" was also joined by an unknown writer Leonid Zurov. They stayed in Paris, but much more often - in Grasse, in a villa. Alps on the one hand, the sea on the other. It was not for nothing that Arsenyev’s Life was written there, a novel that so admired Paustovsky, for example. Galina was also inspired, who later published a prose work about that period of her life. This was the most significant success of her work.
Kiev childhood. Emigration
Galya was born at the turn of the century, December 10, 1900. It was on this day that a daughter was born in a noble, with ancient roots, Kiev family, who had to live a very difficult, controversial, full of tragic events life. Soon they moved from the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital to a street that she remembered primarily for her chestnuts. She bore the name of Lewandowska. After 18 years, she graduated from the same gymnasium, female, of course. Education was given there good, but quite traditional, classical.
She lived with her mother, who married a second time, and with her stepfather. Relations between family members were very difficult. You can learn more about this in the Prolog. This is the name of the autobiographical novel of G. N. Kuznetsova. There are slurred, dull references to this in her surviving diaries. That was the main reason for her very early marriage. She met the revolution already married woman. The lawyer and officer of the White Army Dmitry Petrov became the chosen one. With him she sailed in 1920 in the refuge of many emigrants from Russia, Constantinople. The ship, like all others like it, was full of fugitives, desperate and not seeing the future, but also the present of Russia, the Bolsheviks, not accepting in any way. Maybe this was one of the reasons for the rapid rapprochement of Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova with Bunin? But this happened much later, when she was almost 33 years old.
The first European city for newlyweds was Prague. Naturally, there was no own house. Inhabited in the famous emigrant dormitory. This "Dictionary" left a mark on the fate of many fugitives from the former empire. She tried to engage in creativity for a long time and now she entered the institute located in Paris. Soon there, in the romantic French capital, they moved. This city is also famous for its chestnuts, but in her memoirs they are not at all like those of Kiev that grew near her childhood home.
Creation
Poems of the new poetess immediately began to appear in numerous then Russian-language magazines. Prose was also written: short stories, studies, short stories. Critics praised, reviews were quite friendly. But the poet with a capital letter, Galina did not. Her poems are too cold, although many are skillful. On the part of the form of claims to them is not much. Only now she did not learn to let her feelings and emotions pass through the description. And is it possible to learn this? Her landscapes are watercolor transparent, but faceless, there is no author.
When compared with painting, this is an exact image of what he saw, like a photograph. In her work, it is not for nothing that poetry about love is almost absent. She herself dimly understood this. “Artist” is the name of the story, where she tries to characterize herself. Nevertheless, her poems were highly appreciated by Vyacheslav Ivanov. However, it is understandable. The mystical, symbolist thinking of the author was close to him. Kuznetsova’s poetry has remained scattered in magazines. However, for her time she started pretty well. At this time, the main event of her life happened.
Life-changing meeting
As the biography testifies, Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova was living quite well by then. Okay, small sprout, with a good figure, mischievous. So it was perceived by many, especially at sea, where he and Dmitry traveled as soon as the opportunity was given. Only the closest could discern sadness in her eyes. They had already met with Bunin. He took the manuscript, which she was asked to convey, said something, and they parted without making the slightest impression on one another.
Secondly and in many ways they met again in 1926. There was a velvet season on the coast. She walked along the sea with the poet Mikhail Hoffmann. Ivan Alekseevich was already sixty. He shook her hand at a meeting, she looked into his eyes. This was enough to leave her husband almost immediately after returning home. He completely did not understand what had happened. For a long time he persuaded her to change her mind, even threatened with death a classic. After parting, he came with flowers for a long time, brought money. Everything was useless. He probably understood something and disappeared forever, dissolving among the many fellow countrymen who lived in Paris.
Two women and Bunin
A new life began, hardly expecting this from the fate of Galina. As a longtime admirer of Bunin's work, Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova now felt mesmerized by his personality. Sometimes she tried to resist this, began to tear his letters, but this continued only until their next meeting. The opinions of other people meant little to her. After all, rumors about the novel immediately became the number one news among the Russian emigration. Most of them, of course, were condemned. Including Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, his wife. How can I give this man 30 years, go through such tests with him, and now patiently endure the insult, smiling perplexedly at my acquaintances? What was she to do? The woman was well aware that without him there would be no life for her, as well as for him without her. Too many have tied them over these years.
Vera Nikolaevna found an incredible, but largely salvage move. Her husband once lost a child from his first wife. A boy of five years only in a week burned up from then deadly scarlet fever. There were no more children. So what did he find in this woman more like a young girl? Well, of course. She replaced him with a child. In such a double quality, Galina began to live in their family. Officially for outsiders - the student of the master and the adopted daughter, in fact - a lover. However, what actually happened in the triangle, the top of which was Bunin, is not known. He himself destroyed the diaries of those years, burned.
Memories
At least somehow hinting at the truth, at least to avoid gossip, Galina herself could. The best and most famous of her creations is the “Grasse Diary”, dedicated specifically to the time of close communication between the three heroes of this article. But she did not say a word about the true attitude to Ivan Alekseevich. A faithful admirer and student, who carries out the instructions of the owners, makes up company, if necessary, during walks, listens to Bunin's arguments about literature, daring to insert his comments not always. This is her image in this book.
But there is also traced the complexity of this not quite ordinary, to put it mildly, situation. The character of the owner of the house was well known to his wife. Over the years of living together, she managed to adapt to him, understood that he would remain at the forefront in all situations. Annoying, sarcastic, often ruthless to others, who himself suffered no less than others from his egocentrism. Galina did not understand all this immediately. She writes about his anger about her attempts to do literature herself, about the impossibility of being in his presence herself. But she does not understand, as it seems, the reasons for all this.
Four in one house
The situation became even more unusual and even extravagant when Bunin invited Zurov to live with them. Galina does not conceal this situation, but also only partially. This man was long and unrequitedly in love with V.N. Muromtseva. Moreover, Ivan Alekseevich knew about this. Spicy, of course. It is not in vain that so many writers who have never seen him like to write and mention the writer. Only everything there was much more complicated.
Gradually, she was increasingly weighed by unfreedom. Sometimes she struggled to Paris, went to exhibitions, to museums. In response, he was deafly annoyed, clenching his fists with anger. Leonid, meaning Zurov, did not add harmony to this company. He was a very unbalanced, dying man. And Vera Nikolaevna only did that she felt sorry for them all: her young rival, realizing her craving for freedom, Lenya, her husband. She didn’t even try to make a difference.
Hopelessness
In the book of Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova (photo in the article) the word “hopelessness” appears more and more often. The suffocating sense of omnipotence over another person does not allow her to live, work. And Bunin himself spoke to his wife that the two of them would probably be better. Of course, more boring, but calmer. Compounded by all the bad character of the owner. Over the years, he managed to quarrel with almost the entire literary community of Russian emigration. He could not stand the competition. Hence his mocking remarks about poets and writers of Europe of that time, which became known. In their house, guests almost ceased to be. The closest friends and neighbors in Grasse said that they would not want to see all four of them at once. Binding them and strangling all the thread felt immediately.
Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova (1900-1976) writes about poverty, which was already becoming just threatening. In this situation, the hope of receiving the Nobel Prize was the only thing that promised salvation. And as it turned out, it was a trip to Stockholm that would be a salvation for all four. But before that there was an acquaintance with Fedor Stepun, who was visiting them during his lecture trip. He was one of the few who were not at all embarrassed by the character of Bunin. A man with sparkling humor, loving and able to argue, he practically did not agree with him in everything, but Ivan Alekseevich, which is strange, put up with it. The presence of the guest somewhat relaxed the situation, but he went to his home in Germany, and everything was back to square one.
The Grasse Diary is six years of a woman’s life, which probably wasn’t capable of independent, strong actions. She could break out of a house that had almost become a prison when an artist who did not leave her indifferent was courting her. His last name was Sorin. He did not insist as decisively as it was necessary in this case, and she did not dare to break with the past.
Break
They went to Stockholm without Zurov. They decided to return in a roundabout way, visiting first Stepun in Dresden. This turned out to be the beginning of the end, which became already unbearable for all relations. The fact is that at that time he had a sister, a talented and rather famous singer, who was an ardent lesbian. And Galina, after so many years of living with a talented poet and prose writer, but an unbearable person, was perhaps unable to fall in love with a man. Accustomed to the role of a “led” person, she was unable to withstand the pressure of a powerful woman who charmed her from the first meeting.
Prior to meeting with Galina, not much is known about Margarita Stepun's life. She was from a very wealthy manufacturer family. Until 1917, most likely, she lived in Moscow. In exile, she performed a lot with concerts. Music, beautiful voice of a new acquaintance, a different setting. All this played a role, and another Galina returned to Grasse, which Bunin did not accept internally. And soon Marga, as relatives and friends called her, came to them. What happened then in the house is known from the records of V. N. Muromtseva. She calls the guest a special, proud, with a difficult character and high self-conceit. But that's why she fit into their established company. However, everything was balanced by her calm disposition. Bunin became more annoyed about the friendship of Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova and Margarita Stepun (photo in the article), but suffered. He really did not fully understand what was going on. When Margarita Stepun left, he tried to bring relations with the “student” back on track, but this was hardly possible. Very little time passed, and she also went to Germany.
For Bunin, this was a collapse, a shock. He perceived the act of Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova, whose personal life is discussed in the article, as a betrayal, an insult. And she understood that the new hobby left her no choice. From now on, there was no place for her next to Jan, as Vera Nikolaevna called him. She needed self-justification, and she found him in the fact that after receiving the prize, he no longer needed support. True, a break in relations, however, did not happen. The classic's wife really became attached to her, as to her daughter. And during the Nazi occupation, the circumstances were such that the women in love were forced to live all in the same Grass house. Bunin made no attempt to return her. He was angry, perplexed about the “strange couple”, but almost reconciled.
New life
Margarita was not so painfully selfish, but in authority she was a little inferior to Ivan Alekseevich. Galya, in fact, remained in the same subordinate position, but was not burdened by him. She became more confident in herself, having overcome her complexes somewhat, continued her literary studies, and published. But the first violin in this duet was, of course, Marga. The stories and poems of Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova again began, though not often, to be taken to magazines, published, but she did not find any significant status. Too much time has been lost. The Grass diary by Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova was published in Washington in 1967. This was a separate publication that immediately aroused great interest. Despite the fact that she nevertheless decided to break off relations with Bunin, in the minds of contemporaries and descendants she remained only thanks to him.
Back in 1949, Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova and Margarita Stepun left for the United States. The personal life of both was quite fine. They are so to the end and remained together. Since 1955, they worked at the UN, in the Russian department. Together with all the employees, ten years later they were transferred to Geneva. In recent years, Munich has become a place of residence. Galina survived Margarita Augustovna for five years. She died in 1976, February 8th. Both were buried in the same German city.
Afterword
It is worth mentioning the fate of other heroes of this story. Bunin's premium money did not last long. In recent years, the writer spent in poverty, which is not an exaggeration to call terrifying. He spoke little with people, and even more so with writers. With age, he became more and more bile and unbearable in a relationship. But he became close to Soviet writers, even thinking about returning. However, his biography is well known to everyone. And in 1961, 8 years after the death of the author of The Dark Alleys, his wife-sufferer did not die. Incidentally, in recent years she has been paid a pension coming from the USSR. This allowed the status of the wife of a Russian writer. Zurov remained. He never started an independent life. He lived with the Bunins. A very severe mental disorder, so the literary work and death in a psychiatric shelter in 1971 did not lead to anything. He rested with Ivan and Vera Bunin at the Parisian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, famous for the graves of Russian emigrants.