Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin
born Oct. 10 [Oct. 22, New Style], 1870, Voronezh, Russia
died Nov. 8, 1953, Paris, France
Poet and novelist, the first Russian to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (1933) and one of the best of Russian stylists.
While working as a journalist and clerk Bunin wrote and translated poetry; his first volume of verse was published in 1891. For his translation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Hiawatha he was awarded a Pushkin prize in 1903 by the Russian Academy, which later elected him an honorary fellow (1909). He also translated Lord Byron's Manfred and Cain. Bunin, whose poetry has a Parnassian ring, had no use for modern avant-garde trends.
Bunin made his name as a short-story writer with such masterpieces as “Gospodin iz San-Frantsisko,” the title piece in one of his collections (1916; The Gentleman from San Francisco). His last book of stories, Tyomnyye allei (Dark Avenues), was published in 1943.
Bunin's longer works include Derevnya (1910; The Village), Mitina lyubov (1925; Mitya's Love), Zhizn Arsenyeva (“The Life of Arsenev”), a fictional autobiography (1930; The Well of Days) and its sequel, Lika (1939), and two volumes of memoirs, Okayannyye dni (1935; “The Cursed Days”) and Vospominaniya (1950; Memories and Portraits).
He also wrote books on Leo Tolstoy (Osvobozhdeniye Tolstogo, 1937; “Tolstoy's Liberation”) and Anton Chekhov, both of whom he knew personally. The latter book, O Chekhove (“On Chekhov”), remained unfinished and was published posthumously (1955).
Additional Reading
Bunin's life and work are examined in Julian W. Connolly, Ivan Bunin (1982); Thomas Gaiton Marullo (ed.), Ivan Bunin: Russian Requiem, 1885–1920 (1993), and Ivan Bunin: From the Other Shore, 1920–1933 (1995), comprising Bunin's letters, diaries and fiction, as well as writings of his wife; and James B. Woodward, Ivan Bunin: A Study of His Fiction (1980).
