Information about the author:
Natalia N. Primochkina, DSc in Philology, Director of Research, Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5536-7657
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Abstract:
The article analyzes the ambiguous personally conflicting and literary relations of two major Russian realist writers of the 20th century, I.A. Bunin and M. Gorky, of the post-revolutionary period. Before the revolution, these writers were connected by almost twenty years of friendship. After the revolution their life and creative paths diverged forever. Despite this Bunin and Gorky continued to have a close interest in each other, closely watching each other’s social activities, publicistic speeches and artistic creativity. But Bunin fundamentally refused to see anything positive in his former friend, to recognize him for any artistic achievements. Gorky, while continuing to value Bunin’s writing talent very highly, believed that his talent in the conditions of emigration, far from his homeland, began to fade. In the minds of many contemporaries Gorky and Bunin were considered two centers of divided Russian literature, two magnetic poles around which the writers of Soviet Russia and emigration were grouped. If Gorky was the undisputed leader and head of Soviet literature, Bunin was a recognized master and “the chief ” writer of Russian literature abroad.