“Letters from Nature”: Autobiographical Material in the Early Prose of Ivan Bunin

Abstract

The article reviews the traditional point of view about the immaturity and inconsistency of Ivan Bunin. On the basis of the new materials (complete corpus of Bunin’s early prose collected by the Bunin group of IWL RAS), the author claims that there are just a few literary clichés in the Bunin’s works of the late 1880s – early 1890s. Young Bunin is relieved of them by “writing from nature,” i. e. live sketches, genre scenes, accurate recording of conversations. Autobiographical material was one of the most important components of the technique “letter from nature,” i. e. the depiction of the relatives as special “types” (more in the Turgenev’s manner than in narodnik sociological plan), as well as the sketches of his own childhood, transformed love stories, etc. After citing examples of autobiographical material in Bunin’s early prose and considering the methods of its use in the texts, the author comes to the conclusion that Bunin’s early work is deeply independent, and Bunin’s “natural” poetics, formed in the first decade of his writing, influenced his poetics in the future.