Ivan Bunin began to write poems in his youth. His earliest poetic works that have survived to this day date back to 1883~1885, when the author was only 13~15 years old.
Everything Bunin wrote those years, he kept in thick notebooks. The poet was sewing them with his own hands, and borrowed the names for self-made collections from old books: ‘Experiments’, ‘Compositions’ and others.
The exhibit of the museum presents the surviving cover of the fifth notebook of Bunin’s youthful poetry of 1887 entitled “Poetic Compositions”. Later, already in adulthood, the writer left an inscription on it: “This is the cover of one of those notebooks that I was sewing for my compositions with my own hands. I imitated Pushkin In handwriting”.
In his youth, Bunin was fond of the works of Aleksandr Pushkin. He recalled: “Pushkin was a real part of my life at that time”. The writer believed that he inherited his interest in the “sun of Russian poetry” from his mother Liudmila Aleksandrovna, who read Pushkin’s poems to Bunin from the first days of his life. In Pushkin’s lyrics, the writer appreciated the classical perfection of form and harmony, as well as “the amazing clarity of the soul and the harmony of the world outlook”. Therefore, while working on his own poems, Bunin strove not only to master the technique, but also to penetrate the secret of “Pushkin”s moods”.
On January 30, 1887, Bunin wrote a poem “To the portrait of A.S. Pushkin” with the subtitle “The 50th year from the date of his death”:
Being a true genius he understood
The real role of the poet:
He was the sonorous response
To everything requiring answers.
He flew around the world by dream,
Have reached the apogee of glory,
He then fell down, slain by slander,
At feet of miserable villain…
Bunin expressed his admiration for the Pushkin’s genius in his speech on June 21, 1949 at a public meeting in honour of the 150th anniversary of the poet’s birth: “A century and a half ago, God gave Russia great happiness. But it was not given to keep this happiness. In some terrible time, with its connivance, the precious life of the One Who embodied its highest perfections was cut short”.
And in his autobiographical novel “The Life of Arseniev”, he wrote: “Pushkin amazed me with his witchcraft prologue to “Ruslan”:
There is a green oak by the seashore,
The golden chain is on that oak…
It would seem what a trifle – a few good, albeit beautiful, extremely beautiful poems! And meanwhile they entered my whole being for the whole life, became one of the superlative joys that I experienced on earth’.
Everything Bunin wrote those years, he kept in thick notebooks. The poet was sewing them with his own hands, and borrowed the names for self-made collections from old books: ‘Experiments’, ‘Compositions’ and others.
The exhibit of the museum presents the surviving cover of the fifth notebook of Bunin’s youthful poetry of 1887 entitled “Poetic Compositions”. Later, already in adulthood, the writer left an inscription on it: “This is the cover of one of those notebooks that I was sewing for my compositions with my own hands. I imitated Pushkin In handwriting”.
In his youth, Bunin was fond of the works of Aleksandr Pushkin. He recalled: “Pushkin was a real part of my life at that time”. The writer believed that he inherited his interest in the “sun of Russian poetry” from his mother Liudmila Aleksandrovna, who read Pushkin’s poems to Bunin from the first days of his life. In Pushkin’s lyrics, the writer appreciated the classical perfection of form and harmony, as well as “the amazing clarity of the soul and the harmony of the world outlook”. Therefore, while working on his own poems, Bunin strove not only to master the technique, but also to penetrate the secret of “Pushkin”s moods”.
On January 30, 1887, Bunin wrote a poem “To the portrait of A.S. Pushkin” with the subtitle “The 50th year from the date of his death”:
Being a true genius he understood
The real role of the poet:
He was the sonorous response
To everything requiring answers.
He flew around the world by dream,
Have reached the apogee of glory,
He then fell down, slain by slander,
At feet of miserable villain…
Bunin expressed his admiration for the Pushkin’s genius in his speech on June 21, 1949 at a public meeting in honour of the 150th anniversary of the poet’s birth: “A century and a half ago, God gave Russia great happiness. But it was not given to keep this happiness. In some terrible time, with its connivance, the precious life of the One Who embodied its highest perfections was cut short”.
And in his autobiographical novel “The Life of Arseniev”, he wrote: “Pushkin amazed me with his witchcraft prologue to “Ruslan”:
There is a green oak by the seashore,
The golden chain is on that oak…
It would seem what a trifle – a few good, albeit beautiful, extremely beautiful poems! And meanwhile they entered my whole being for the whole life, became one of the superlative joys that I experienced on earth’.
