Information about the author:

Acknowledgements:

The research was carried out at the A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 22-18-00347 “Ivan Bunin’s Early Work: Poetry, Prose, Criticism, Journalism, Translations (1883–1902)”).

Abstract:

This article examines the philosophical bases of the two chief elements in Ivan Bunin’s creative writing — poetry and prose: their deep origins and mutual influence and reinforcement in his artistic consciousness. Bunin’s self-identification as a poet informs all his works, poetry or prose. The reason for this apparently paradoxical imbalance between the two literary poles lies in the overall lyrical source of the poet-writer’s artistic explorations, as well as in his characteristic perception of the world as a poetic sphere, in which every phenomenon and every moment finds a reflection (repetition, echo) in the author’s personal experience. The article traces the network of dichotomies, through which the opposition and unity of the poetic and prosaic sides of Bunin’s individual worldview and artistic philosophy are formed: for his prose — linearity, questioning, solitude, despair and an attempt to go beyond the limits of earthly existence, for his poetry — sphericality, answering, universality, consolation and thankfulness for the world’s variety and abundance. This network of oppositions emerges already in the earliest period of Bunin’s work.