About the authors:
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
E-mail:
Anastasia V. Nazarova, PhD in Philology, Senior Lecturer, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, building 51, 119991 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3579-861X
E-mail:
Abstract:
The paper attempts to compare the Ivan Bunin and E.N. Chirikov’s artistic views of the world which revealed a number of similar stages in their creative evolution that do not coincide chronologically, but clearly indicate that a long dialogue existed between the writers. Despite the fact the origins of the artistic search for writers initially lay in different planes (one of them paid more attention to the understanding of philosophical problems, the other focused mainly on the image of social contradictions and ideological disputes in Russian society), the vectors of creative interests of Bunin and Chirikov were quite close. Both of them focused on the issues related to understanding the fate of the rural world and the peasantry, the contradictions of the Russian national character, the causes of social evil and injustice and the revolutionary catastrophe of 1917, the meaning of writing and the mystery of love. The revealed points of intersection in the legacy of both authors allow us to significantly expand the idea of personal and creative contacts of the first Russian Nobel laureate with contemporary realist writers, primarily colleagues from the literary association “Sreda” and the book partnership “Znanie”.