I. S. Shmelev: «Through Bunin, who was born in Russia, Russia itself, imprinted in writing, has been recognised by the world»
By Vyacheslav Katamidze
Writers, publicists, historians, and political analysts learn an immutable truth from the very beginning of their careers: one of the ways to enrich themselves spiritually and develop professionally is through constant communication with their colleagues and creative people in general. In conversations with them, their own opinions crystallise, truth is born in disputes, and positions are formed in discussions.
The aspiring writer Ivan Alexeyevich Bunin realised this from a young age. Besides, being a well-educated, cultivated and polite person, he easily mastered the art of communication with creative people.
In January 1895, having quit his service in Poltava, Ivan Alexeyevich first came to St Petersburg. It is known that he spent twelve days in the capital. And over that relatively short span of time, he managed to meet several famous people who were useful to him and important for the realisation of his creative work. He met the literary critic, publicist and brilliant translator Nikolai Mikhailovsky, and was in contact with the publicist Sergei Krivenko, who was at that time a theorist of the Narodnik Movement, for which he had already been in prison and exiled to Siberia. But his most important acquaintance was with the poet Konstantin Balmont, who eventually became a star of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.
Bunin, who himself began with collected poems, regarded him as a «poet of the soul and heart», a master of elegant and refined poetry. He also admired Balmont’s translations.
In 1906 Balmont emigrated abroad and had his poems published in France, as censorship did not allow them in Russia. It should be noted that in 1923 Balmont was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature along with Maxim Gorky.
Bunin was also in contact with Dmitry Grigorovich, the «singer of the village». He met him at a bookshop and immediately found plenty to talk about with him. As Bunin wrote later, the seventy-two-year-old writer struck him with his lively gaze and raccoon fur coat down to his toes.
Grigorovich was born in the remote village of Cheremshan in the Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk) province. He is the author of many novels, novellas and short stories on peasant themes, among which the novel Anton the Poor Wretch, published in 1847, stands out.
Bunin continued meeting with authors and critics in other cities of Russia. Thus, he visited Leo Tolstoy at his mansion in Khamovniki (now the Leo Tolstoy State Museum in Khamovniki, Moscow). It was there that the great author wrote about 100 of his works, including the novel Resurrection, the novellas The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Kreutzer Sonata, and Father Sergius.
In late December 1903 in Moscow Bunin met with Anton Chekhov who surprised him with his simplicity and affability. Ivan Alexeyevich described that meeting as follows: «I, then still a young man who was not used to such a tone at first meetings, mistook his simplicity for coldness…»
Both were getting ready for their journeys: Bunin was going to Nice; for Chekhov, who lived in Yalta, it was the penultimate trip to Moscow. Next time he would come here for a very short time before going to Badenweiler, where he would die. Bunin would write many years later: «I couldn’t have imagined in those days that it was our last meeting.»
Bunin didn’t find common ground with the poet Valery Bryusov from the first day they met. Bunin rejected Symbolism straightaway, believing that it was too far from lyrical poetry and even dangerous for it. But their first meeting wasn’t about poetry; Bryusov threw the classic Symbolist slogan on Ivan Alexeyevich: “Long Live all that’s new, and down with all that’s old and obsolete!” Bunin interpreted this as the promise that his works, both poetic and prose, were going to be thrown into the trash. Thenceforth, Bryusov no longer existed for him.
But he made many talented and active friends when he joined the Sreda Literary Society, whose members met in the home of Nikolai Teleshov. These were Maxim Gorky, his friend the writer and journalist Stepan Skitalets, Fyodor Chaliapin, the prose-writer and playwright Evgeny Chirikov, as well as Teleshov himself.
Sincerely loving art and literature, Teleshov helped writers and was no stranger to writing works of literature himself. Meanwhile, he was a hereditary honorary citizen and co-owner of the Dmitry Yegorovich Teleshov Trading House, established in 1877 by his father, a member of the board of the Commercial and Industrial Partnership for Large-Scale Manufacturing in Yaroslavl, and guild head of the Merchants’ Council of the Society of Moscow Merchants (1894-1898).
But even more surprising is that Teleshov took part in the October Revolution, became one of the first Soviet writers and eventually received the title of Honoured Artist of the RSFSR in 1938.
He treated Bunin as his best friend and even paid for his honeymoon abroad – to the countries of the East.
As for the Society’s meetings, they were more like gatherings of a youth literary club than those of experienced literary men discussing issues in current publishing policies. The authors presented their new works and even read excerpts from them, but usually it was about interesting or funny stories rather than the literary merits of their work: these were left on the editors’ conscience. All discussions took place in an informal environment, and to make them even easier and more friendly, each member of the Society had a nickname associated with the name of one or another Moscow Street.
There were also other nicknames in the Society. Nikolai Teleshov called Bunin «restless»: he could never stay in one place for long, and letters from Ivan Alexeyevich now came from Oryol, now from Yalta… Gorky was nicknamed «shoemaker» because as a child he used to be a shoemaker’s apprentice. No one was offended by these nicknames.
The relations between Bunin and Gorky were interesting. Their principles of literary creative work were extremely different, but then they had a genuine liking for each other. At the very first meeting Gorky told Bunin: «You are the last writer from the nobility, the culture that gave the world Pushkin and Tolstoy.» A few days later, Ivan Alexeyevich sent Gorky his book Under the Open Sky.
They started a correspondence that lasted for almost two decades. From 1902 on, the names of Gorky and Bunin often appeared next to each other in newspaper news: the writers were reckoned as representatives of the same literary group. It is known that Ivan Alexeyevich attended almost all the premieres of performances based on Gorky’s plays. As for the latter, his responses to Bunin’s works over that period were mostly positive. For instance, after reading the short story, Antonovka Apples, Gorky wrote: «That’s good. Here Ivan Bunin has sung like a young god.» Bunin responded by dedicating his poem Falling Leaves to him.
But the more the coming revolutionary events were felt in the air, the greater the abyss between the two men of letters was. The last meeting of Bunin and Gorky took place in Petrograd in April 1917. As Bunin recalled, on the very day when he was supposed to leave Petrograd, Gorky organised a big meeting at the Mikhailovsky Theatre, where he introduced Bunin and Chaliapin as special guests.
The audience in the hall seemed dubious to Ivan Alexeyevich, and he didn’t like Gorky’s speech, which began with the address «Comrades!» to the audience. They parted as friends though. It gave Gorky reason, when he arrived in Moscow in the first days after the Revolution, to let Bunin know that he wanted to meet with him. But in response, he conveyed through Ekaterina Peshkova that their «relations have been broken forever.»
It became clear that their paths had completely diverged. If we take the social and political journalism of the early 1920s, then Bunin and Gorky became opponents. Ivan Alexeyevich referred to Gorky mainly as a «propagandist of Soviet power”. Gorky made even harsher judgements about his former friend. In a letter to his secretary Pyotr Kryuchkov he stated that «Bunin has become brutal.» Later, when a fairly solid group of famous émigré writers who did not accept the Revolution formed in France, Gorky said about them in his letter to Konstantin Fedin: «B. Zaytsev incompetently writes the Lives of Saints. Shmelev is something unbearably hysterical. Kuprin doesn’t write – he drinks. Bunin is rewriting The Kreutzer Sonata under the title Mitin.” After that, no correspondence between them was possible.
Bunin was not a pacifist in the full sense of the word, but he was a humanist and a patriot. The First World War and its horrors made a deep impression on him. When in 1914 the news came about the German shelling of Reims Cathedral, Bunin wrote an appeal On the War. From Writers, Artists and Actors, condemning the Germans, whom he called the only initiators of the war, who were destroying values «for the sake of an unrealistic hope to rule the world by violence»; he contrasted the cruelty of the «Germans» with «peace and liberation» on the part of the Entente, guided «only by sacred feelings.» Apart from Bunin, the signatories included Fyodor Chaliapin, Konstantin Stanislavsky, Evgeny Vakhtangov, Ivan Shmelev, Peter Struve, Maria Ermolova and Alexander Serafimovich. A few days later, Maxim Gorky joined them.
Bunin’s appeal was undoubtedly heard by many cultural figures in Russia, and the number of his devotees increased. Among them was young Valentin Kataev, who called himself Bunin’s disciple.
In 1914 the seventeen-year-old Kataev, who first heard about Ivan Alexeyevich’s poems from the poet Alexander Fedorov, himself came to Bunin, who was in Odessa at that time. Later he described that meeting in the book The Grass of Oblivion, mentioning that he was met by a «forty-year-old gentleman, chilly, bilious and dandyish”, dressed in trousers made by a good tailor and English yellow shoes. The young man handed Bunin a notebook of his poems and said bluntly: «I’m writing… imitating you.» The audience was short, but when two weeks later Kataev came to Ivan Alexeyevich for an answer, the «first miracle» happened in his life: Bunin suggested that he find time for a new conversation. From that moment on, their communication began, which continued intermittently until 1920. When Bunin and Vera Muromtseva (his second wife), along with other refugees, reached Odessa in 1918, they met almost daily: Kataev brought his new poems to the writer, and Bunin worked a lot with his manuscripts, making notes, editing, and giving advice. His «initiation as a disciple”, according to Valentin Petrovich, occurred only after he had heard the first praise from Bunin.
Kataev became a member of the Odessa Literary Society, whose meetings Ivan Alexeyevich always attended. Conversations there were quite free-spirited, and Bunin recorded them in his diary. Later he deliberately removed some very sharp remarks of Kataev from his records so as not to let down his literary godson who had remained in Soviet Russia.
While already in France, Muromtseva-Bunina devoted all her free time to sorting through Bunin’s archives, including his correspondence with prominent men of letters, and studied his diaries thoroughly, striving to weed out everything that could cast a shadow on Ivan Alexeyevich. Among the numerous letters she found one from Kataev «from the White Front», dated October 1919. It began with the words: «Dear teacher Ivan Alexeyevich…»
Valentin Kataev eventually became one of the most popular authors in the USSR. In his book The Grass of Oblivion he described in detail and with light humour how he had associated with Bunin in Odessa.
I think the most fascinating saga in the life of Ivan Alexeyevich was his relations with the writer Alexander Kuprin. They were born in the same year 1870 and first met near Odessa nineteen years later. Almost from the first months of their acquaintance, Bunin supported his new friend as much as he could. Kuprin was just starting his literary experiments, and Bunin gave him some good advice. Both the friendship and literary activities of the two young authors bore fruit.
But in time Kuprin was so upset by the failed attempts to have his short stories published that he began to become disillusioned with his own work and did not even dare to take his stories to a publisher, knowing that they did not like to publish novice authors. Then Bunin personally took Kuprin’s short story to the editorial office of a magazine.
«He was waiting for me outside, and when I rushed out to him from the editorial office with a twenty-five-rouble note, he couldn’t believe his eyes with happiness. He ran to buy himself boots, and then recklessly he took me to the seaside restaurant Arkady to treat me to fried mackerel and white Bessarabian wine. How many times, for how many years, and how quickly and frantically he shouted at me when he was tipsy:
‘I’ll never forgive you! How dared you do a great favour to me and provide me, a barefoot pauper, with shoes!’» wrote Bunin in his diary.
At the same time, their styles, characters, and relationships with their acquaintances were very different. Ivan Alexeyevich was a proud man, and sometimes even harsh, while Alexander Ivanovich always remained gentle and good-natured. According to the reminiscences of Maria Karlovna Kuprina, once during a dinner at their house Bunin, who was proud of his ancestry, called her husband «a noble on his maternal side”. In response, Kuprin composed a parody of Bunin’s short story Antonovka Apples, entitled Milk Mushroom Pies. This satirical miniature was not offensive, and they continued to be friends.
Kuprin’s creative work was developing, and he was becoming more and more popular. By the end of the 1910s, both writers were widely known, and critics considered them to be among the top five writers in Russia. They were still friends, but, in fact, they were the main rivals in the country’s literary world. No wonder that they became competitors when the destiny of the prestigious Pushkin Prize was being decided in 1909.
In early May Kuprin, who had received information about the preliminary results of the contest, told Bunin that they had both been awarded the «half» Pushkin Prize. In his letter he jokingly remarked: «I’m not mad at you for pinching half a thousand from me.» Bunin replied seriously: «I am glad that fate has connected my name with yours.» In October, it was officially announced that the Pushkin Prize for 1909 was divided between Bunin and Kuprin; each of them received 500 roubles. And less than two weeks later, the news arrived from the Imperial Academy of Sciences about Bunin’s election as an honorary academician in the field of fine literature.
Commenting on the results of the Pushkin Prize, in one of his books Kuprin did not fail to note the symbolism of the fact that Pushkin’s granddaughter was among the guests at the gala evening at Bunin’s home.
Once in the emigration, Bunin did not forget his friends and colleagues. He made a lot of efforts to help many Russian writers, whose work he appreciated, move to France. Of course, Kuprin was one of them.
Arriving in Paris in 1920, Kuprin took up his residence in the same house where Bunin lived, and even on the same floor with him. Perhaps this neighbourhood sometimes burdened Ivan Alexeyevich, who was accustomed to planning his workdays thoroughly, and sometimes he had to put up with the endless stream of Kuprin’s visitors. It did not improve the relations between the old friends at all; Bunin’s wife even remarked that Dostoevsky himself would be needed to understand what was happening in their souls.
Nevertheless, after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1933, Bunin brought Alexander Ivanovich 5,000 francs. According to Kuprin’s daughter Xenia Alexandrovna, this present helped their family a lot, because money was tight. One of the causes of this condition was Kuprin’s passion for alcohol. Once abroad and homesick, he often found solace in liquor, which affected his health.
Though Bunin believed that the mission of Russian emigration was to resist Bolshevism and even stated this when he gave a talk at a meeting of émigré writers, he did not condemn Kuprin when he decided to return to the USSR in 1937. Among the emigres opinions on this issue were divided: the majority condemned Kuprin, but probably they did not know what Bunin was aware of. Kuprin was seriously ill and believed that he should be buried in his native land.
The relations between Bunin and Nabokov were very complicated.
First of all, let us note that there are several groups of literary critics and literary historians whose positions on the relationship between these two talented writers are not only different, but sometimes diametrically opposed. Some note in these relations the «problem of rivalry», the desire to achieve moral superiority and the indisputability of their postulates; others, on the contrary, see similarities in their manner of presentation, in the reverence for their material presented, and in the depth of the psychological approach to revealing the traits of their literary characters. Perhaps all this was present in the work of both authors – we will not argue with it. But, assessing the period of development of the relations between Bunin and Nabokov, we should admit that Bunin always acted much more honestly and nobly than Nabokov.
Ivan Alexeyevich’s contacts with the Nabokov family began in the late 1920s with Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, the writer’s father. He was a well-known lawyer and one of the leaders of the Cadet Party. Born into the Nabokov noble family, he was married to a daughter of Rukavishnikov, a gold mine owner. The writer’s paternal grandfather was Minister of Justice in the Governments of Alexander II and Alexander III.
English people say about those like Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov: «He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.» It was their family’s rule always to achieve the goal, no matter what the cost.
So, Nabokov Sr asked Ivan Alexeyevich to review his son’s poem, published in the Rul’ Russian émigré newspaper in Berlin. Bunin responded by sending Nabokov not only a warm and encouraging letter, but also his book The Gentleman from San Francisco. A correspondence ensued, and in the spring of 1921 the twenty-two-year-old Vladimir Nabokov, who had his works published under the penname «Vladimir Sirin”, joined in. In his first letter the aspiring poet called Bunin «the only writer who calmly serves the beautiful in our blasphemous age.»
In 1926 Nabokov’s first novel Mashenka was published, which, according to critics, is the «most Bunin-like” work by Vladimir Vladimirovich. On the copy presented to Bunin the author wrote: «Don’t judge me too strictly, please. Yours sincerely, V. Nabokov.»
Three years later Nabokov, who had his collected stories The Return of Chorb published, sent Bunin a copy with a dedicatory inscription: «To the Great Teacher from a diligent disciple.» Nabokov’s short story A Bad Day (1931) was dedicated to Ivan Alexeyevich. Vladimir Vladimirovich welcomed the award of the Nobel Prize to Bunin. In a cable sent to Grasse he wrote: «I’m so happy that you got it!»
Then a period began when Vladimir Nabokov decided that he no longer needed Bunin’s praise. The enthusiastic tone disappeared from his letters. After the publication of his novel Invitation to a Beheading (1936), he wrote on the volume sent to Bunin: «To dear Ivan Alexeyevich Bunin, with the warmest greetings from the author.» Finally, the moment came when Nabokov felt that he had already reached the level when he had not only equalled Bunin but had even surpassed him. It apparently happened when Nabokov became more familiar with contemporary American literature, which radically changed the forms and typology of both novels and novellas. The plots became more straightforward and more intriguing, with more humour, love adventures, and, most importantly, unexpected plot twists.
It should be considered that the Nabokovs possessed enormous financial resources and made full use of them so that the press, not least the emigre press, would launch a propaganda campaign both in Europe and in the USA, creating the image of a «young literary genius», a Russian aristocrat who had even surpassed a Russian Nobel Laureate in popularity. Against this background, the emigre community began noise attempts to determine which of the writers held a leading place on the literary Olympus. And as a result, in the second half of the 1930s, Mark Aldanov began to call on Bunin to admit that Nabokov had taken over as leader of Russian literature.
The first meeting of the two writers took place at the end of 1933. Bunin arrived in Berlin for an event hosted in his honour by the publicist Joseph Hessen, and during the festivities he met Nabokov in person. Bunin was extremely amicable and considerate to the young writer. There were no indications that their relations had entered a stage of confrontation.
But then Bunin was dealt a treacherous blow. Nabokov published an article in which he wrote about a disagreeable meeting with Bunin at a restaurant: with vodka, Roma people, and an appalling atmosphere… Bunin noted in his diary that there had never been any «meeting at a restaurant”. Here is what he wrote in his diary on 14 June 1951: «V. V. Nabokov-Sirin wrote in English and published a book on the cover of which, for some reason, a royal crown is depicted above his last name… There is a page about me, too – with wild and stupid lies that I had allegedly dragged him into some expensive Russian restaurant (with Roma people) to have a drink and heart-to-heart talk with him, as all Russians love it, but he couldn’t stand it. It’s precisely in my manner! But I’ve never been to any restaurant with him.»
It is rather easy to refute Nabokov’s lies. Shortly before his death, Nikolai Teleshov wrote memories of his meetings with Bunin in the USSR. This is what he related: «Ivan Alexeyevich often invited me to his place for pancakes and pies. But he ate little and mostly treated his guests. He had never been to any pubs or bars – he was squeamish. He had been to restaurants, but never to noisy restaurants of merchants. We had been to quiet, elegant restaurants with him a couple of times – I think, English ones. He couldn’t stand restaurant music! He wanted to talk in a peaceful atmosphere, and not shout over singers. And he hated visiting places where Nizhny Novgorod merchants with prostitutes from the Yar Restaurant could drop in. This is not how he was brought up.»
Nabokov’s supporters and the bribed press kept assailing Bunin. When his book Dark Avenues came out, it was labelled as Bunin’s attempt to «even the score with Nabokov”. Meanwhile, Bunin himself wrote with disappointment: «If it weren’t for me, there would have been no Sirin.» Around the same time, Nabokov, who was asked in a written interview to say something about Bunin’s influence on his work, stated that he was not among Ivan Alexeyevich’s followers.
In 1951, an event dedicated to Bunin’s eightieth birthday was being prepared in New York. Mark Aldanov invited Nabokov to read some work by the hero of the day at the evening. Nabokov replied with a written refusal. It put an end to their relations.
In 1906 Bunin met the poet Vladislav Khodasevich, but until he moved to France their acquaintance was superficial. They became close in the emigration. Ivan Alexeyevich would invite Vladislav Felitsianovich to Grasse, help him with money, they would meet at literary events, exchange books and correspond.
In 1923, on Bunin’s recommendation, the prose writer Boris Zaytsev moved to Paris. It was at his home in Moscow that Ivan Alexeyevich had once met his future wife, Vera Muromtseva. For a long time, Zaytsev and Bunin were in a very close contact, were considered to be like-minded literary figures, and together took part in the activities of the French Writers’ Union.
When the news came from Stockholm that Ivan Alexeyevich had been awarded the Nobel Prize, Zaytsev was one of the first to inform the public about it, giving the urgent news under the headline Bunin is Crowned to the newspaper Vozrozhdenie.
Shmelev, who was also pleased with this news, would say in his speech at the celebration: «Through Bunin, who was born in Russia, Russia itself, imprinted in writing, has been recognised by the world.»
A serious disagreement between Bunin and Zaytsev occurred in 1947, when Ivan Alexeyevich resigned from the Union of Russian Writers in protest against the expulsion from it of those who had decided to obtain Soviet citizenship in the post-war period. Leonid Zurov, Alexander Bakhrakh, Georgy Adamovich, and Vadim Andreyev withdrew from the Union with them. It should be noted that after returning to the USSR, Vadim Andreyev, a son of the remarkable Russian writer Leonid Andreyev, became a journalist and author of wonderful books.
Boris Zaytsev, as the chairman of this organisation, was displeased with Bunin’s act. He tried to have it out with him by correspondence, but it only led to their final break-up.
In 1946 the emigre community reacted extremely negatively to Bunin’s agreement to meet with the Soviet Ambassador Alexander Bogomolov. Contacts with Soviet people (and even more so the repatriation of writers) enraged many emigre men of letters.
When it comes to attempts to humiliate or slander great geniuses, in whatever field they worked, we cannot help but recall how Alexandre Dumas Fils reacted to attempts to slander his father: «My father is an ocean. You will never pollute it with your filth…»
