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Abstract:

The article analyzes how the estate topos is presented in Bunin’s first story “Passion” (1897) and his novel “The Life of Arsenyev” (1933). Describing three estates in his first story, young Bunin gives a panoramic image of Russian estate life at the end of the 19th century in its variations — from an ancient manorial estate and an advanced landowner’s farm to a small farm estate. “Passion” makes an attempt to outline a collective image of a person of the estate type and show that there is something common that unites all persons of the estate type — attachment to their native nest, loyalty to their roots, the desire to preserve these roots. In “The Life of Arsenyev” the “estate topos” is voluminous and heterogeneous, represented by a whole system of vectors, and acquires the character of a heterotopia. The vectors analyzed are everyday, natural, national, literary, mythopoetic, existential, and sacred vectors. With general inclusion in the “estate topos”, each vector has its own semantic and artistic specificity. For a writer, an estate is the optimal way to arrange a place of life for a Russian person. The writer expresses the idea that all of Russia is not only a village, but also an estate. “The Life of Arsenyev” constructs a whole estate cosmos — in national, cultural and sacred aspects; the face of Russia is presented here as metaphysically enlightened, and this light extends to the estate culture, which is timeless.