FINDING THE MOTHERLAND IN ISOLATION FROM IT (BASED ON THE MATERIAL OF FATE AND CREATIVITY OF I.A. BUNIN)

Abstract

The article examines Bunin's prose of the 1920s and 40s in the aspect of the writer's changing attitude to Russia in isolation from it. After 1917, Bunin experienced the irretrievability of what had happened ("Cursed Days", "Name Days", "Penguins", "Mad Artist", harsh journalism). This position is most concentrated in the story "The End": "Russia is over." Since the early 1930s, burning pain has been replaced by humility and acceptance of the fact. Russia does not exist – but the memory of it is alive, and Russia belongs to the eternal world of culture. The artist returns her authentic image, "metaphysically enlightened" ("Wanderings", "Arsenyev's Life"). Bunin perceived the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union as a terrible ordeal for the Russian people. The features of Sovdepia have been erased, and Bunin finds his Motherland anew – no longer as a symbolic space in culture, but as a truly existing one. In such circumstances, he creates "Dark Alleys" – a book about love and a book about Russia.