Information about the author:
Maria V. Mikhailova
Maria V. Mikhailova, DSc in Philology, Honored Professor, 1) Professor of the Department of the History of Modern Russian Literature and Modern Literary Process of Philological Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie gory 1/51, 119991 Moscow, Russia; Leading Research Fellow, 2) A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8193-6588
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Abstract:
The article puts forward a version that reading the novel by the writer A.I. Ertel “The Volkhonskaya Young Lady” could play a decisive role in developing the inner world of the heroine of the story by Ivan Bunin “Dawn All Night”. Bunin remembered his meeting with Ertel in Moscow all his life, and appreciated the writer’s legacy. This is evidenced by his memoirs and letters. The similarity of these works is felt in some specific details, but the motif of the “flame” turns out to be more significant, in the “Volkhonskaya Young Lady” it broke out in a real fire, and in Bunin’s work it expressed itself in an unquenchable dawn, which unexpectedly “melted” the heroine’s willingness to marry. While Ertel’s fire, observed by Varvara Alekseevna, causes a fatal fever, then Bunin’s Natalia Alekseevna has night fever visions, which completely replace real pictures of married life.
