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Abstract:

The purpose of the present article is to reveal the universal meaning of childhood in the early lyrics of Ivan Bunin. The novelty of the study lies in the attempt to describe the world-modeling constants of Bunin’s poetic model of the world, to consider the comprehensive nature of ideas about childhood in the author’s poems. The theme of memory becomes the leading one in Bunin’s poetic heritage, addressed to childhood. Memories of childhood are associated with images of home, family, and the idea of continuity of generations. Bunin’s poetry about childhood is filled with an elegiac tone and longing for a bygone childhood. The child hero has the ability to perceive the world around him as harmonious and beautiful. The world of childhood appears as a fairy tale, a dream, which is due to the peculiarities of the child’s worldview. Memories of childhood in Bunin’s poetry are accompanied by motifs of sleep, silence, images of the sun, light, stars, birch, and golden rye. The child feels unity with the surrounding natural world and eternity. Biblical associations and Christian motifs play an important role: the likening of a child to an angel, the comparison of a mother with a guardian angel, the appearance of the image of the Mother of God, symbolizing the connection between the Divine and earthly love of a mother for a child. The world of the child and the world of God are in close contact. The depiction of the “golden world” of childhood does not exclude the theme of childhood suffering. The image of Bunin’s world is deep and complex, it combines different time periods (past and present), experiences and sensations (joy and grief, happiness and suffering).