Ivan Bunin

van Alekseyevich Bunin (Russian: Ива́н Алексе́евич Бу́нин; IPA: [ɪˈvan ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ ˈbunʲɪn] ( listen); 22 October [O.S. 10 October] 1870 – 8 November 1953) was the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was noted for the strict artistry with which he carried on the classical Russian traditions in the writing of prose and poetry. The texture of his poems and stories, sometimes referred to as "Bunin brocade", is considered to be one of the richest in the language. Best known for his short novels The Village (1910) and Dry Valley (1912), his autobiographical novel The Life of Arseniev (1933, 1939), the book of short stories Dark Avenues (1946) and his 1917–1918 diary (Cursed Days, 1926), Bunin was a revered figure among anti-communist White emigres, European critics, and many of his fellow writers, who viewed him as a true heir to the tradition of realism in Russian literature established by Tolstoy and Chekhov.Ivan Bunin was born on his parental estate in Voronezh province in Central Russia, the third and youngest son of Aleksei Nikolaevich Bunin (1827–1906) and Liudmila Aleksandrovna Bunina (née Chubarova, 1835–1910). He had two younger sisters: Masha and Nadya (the latter died very young). Having come from a long line of rural gentry with a distinguished ancestry including Polish roots, Bunin was especially proud that poets Anna Bunina (1774–1829) and Vasíly Zhukóvsky (1783–1852) were among his ancestors. He wrote in his 1952 autobiography: I come from an old and noble house that has given Russia a good many illustrious persons in politics as well as in the arts, among whom two poets of the early nineteenth century stand out in particular: Anna Búnina and Vasíly Zhukóvsky, one of the great names in Russian literature, the son of Athanase Bunin and the Turk Salma. "The Bunins are direct ancestors of Simeon Bunkovsky, a nobleman who came from Poland to the court of the Great Prince Vasily Vasilyevich," he wrote in 1915, quoting the Russian gentry's Armorial Book. Chubarovs, according to Bunin, "knew very little about themselves except that their ancestors were landowners in Kostromskaya, Moskovskaya, Orlovskya and Tambovskaya Guberniyas". "As for me, from early childhood I was such a libertine as to be totally indifferent both to my own 'high blood' and to the loss of whatever might have been connected to it", he added. Ivan Bunin's early childhood, spent in Butyrky Khutor and later in Ozerky (of Yelets county, Lipetskaya Oblast), was a happy one: the boy was surrounded by intelligent and loving people. Father Alexei Nikolayevich was described by Bunin as a very strong man, both physically and mentally, quick-tempered and addicted to gambling, impulsive and generous, eloquent in a theatrical fashion and totally illogical. "Before the Crimean War he'd never even known the taste of wine, on return he became a heavy drinker, although never a typical alcoholic", he wrote. His mother Lyudmila Alexandrovna's character was much more subtle, tender and civilized: this Bunin attributed to the fact that "her father spent years in Warsaw where he acquired certain European tastes which made him quite different from fellow local land-owners". It was Lyudmila Alexandrovna who introduced her son to the world of Russian folklore. Elder brothers Yuly and Yevgeny showed great interest in mathematics and painting respectively, his mother said later, yet, in their mother's words, "Vanya has been different from the moment of birth... none of the others had a soul like his." Indeed, young Bunin's susceptibility and keenness to the nuances of nature were extraordinary. "The quality of my vision was such that I've seen all seven of the stars of Pleiades, heard a marmot's whistle a verst away, and could get drunk from the smells of landysh or an old book," he remembered later. Bunin's experiences of rural life had a profound impact on his writing. "There, amidst the deep silence of vast fields, among cornfields – or, in winter, huge snowdrifts which were stepping up to our very doorsteps - I spent my childhood which was full of melancholic poetry", Bunin later wrote of his Ozerky days. Ivan Bunin's first home tutor was an ex-student named Romashkov, whom he later described as a "positively bizarre character", a wanderer full of fascinating stories, "always thought-provoking even if not altogether comprehensible". Later it was university-educated Yuly Bunin (deported home for being a Narodnik activist) who taught his younger brother psychology, philosophy and the social sciences as part of his private, domestic education. It was Yuly who encouraged Ivan to read the Russian classics and to write himself. Until 1920 Yuly (who once described Ivan as 'undeveloped yet gifted and capable of original independent thought') was the latter's closest friend and mentor. "I had a passion for painting, which, I think, shows in my writings. I wrote both poetry and prose fairly early and my works were also published from an early date," wrote Bunin in his short autobiography. By the end of the 1870s, the Bunins, plagued by the gambling habits of the head of the family, had lost most of their wealth. In 1881 Ivan was sent to a public school in Yelets, but never completed the course: he was expelled in March 1886 for failing to return to the school after the Christmas holidays due to the family's financial difficulties.