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Ivan Bunin was the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1933.
Born Ivan Alekseevich Bunin on October 22, 1870, on his family's estate near Voronezh, Russia, his parents descended from noble lines, including Russian landed gentry and Lithuanian knights. The Bunins were landowners and serfholders, but Ivan's father lost their estate due to gambling debts, leaving the family financially ruined. Ivan spent his childhood among the peasant serfs on the estate. He attended grammar school in Yelets for five years before returning home, continuing his education under the guidance of his elder brother, a university student, who encouraged him to write and explore Russian classics by Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Tolstoy, and others.
At 17, Bunin published his first poem in a St. Petersburg literary magazine. His debut short story, "Derevenski eskiz" ("Country Sketch"), appeared in 1891, followed by numerous poems and stories. He worked as an assistant editor for a local newspaper in Orel, Russia, and his works were featured in various Russian newspapers and magazines. During this time, Bunin began corresponding with Anton Chekhov, eventually forming a close friendship. In 1894, he met Lev Tolstoy, whose works he admired, although their social and moral views diverged. Bunin also befriended Maxim Gorky after their 1899 meeting, spending several winters together on the island of Capri in the early 1900s. Bunin published through Gorky's "Znanie" ("Knowledge") group during that period.
By 1900, Bunin had published over 100 poems. His 1899 translation of Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" earned the Pushkin Prize and a Gold Medal from the Russian Academy of Sciences. Other translations included Byron's "Manfred," Tennyson's "Lady Godiva," and poems by Alfred de Musset. In 1909, Bunin became one of twelve full members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He published his first full-length novel, "Derevnya" ("The Village"), in 1910, followed by "Sukhodol" ("Dry Valley") in 1912, a nostalgic depiction of the declining Russian nobility inspired by his own family. He traveled widely across Russia, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, Europe, and Asia. His first marriage, to the daughter of a Greek revolutionary, ended in divorce, while his second marriage, begun in 1907, lasted for life.
Bunin witnessed the devastation wrought by the communists during the 1917 Russian Revolution. He fled the Bolsheviks, moving from Moscow to Odessa, where he lived for two years, hoping the White Russians would restore order. As revolutionary chaos spread, Bunin was forced to abandon his property in February 1920 and emigrated aboard the last French ship departing Odessa with other anti-communist Russians. He eventually settled in Grasse, near Cannes in southern France. There he published "Okayannye dni" ("The Accursed Days," 1925-26), a diary chronicling the revolution from his perspective, describing the Soviet government as "a disgusting gallery of convicts."
As the eldest Russian émigré writer, Bunin was regarded by intellectual exiles as the last to write in the grand tradition of Tolstoy and Chekhov. After winning the Nobel Prize in 1933, he received worldwide congratulations but no acknowledgment from Soviet Russia, where his name and works were banned. While traveling to accept the prize in Stockholm, Bunin was detained by the Nazis in Germany on false smuggling charges and was forced to drink castor oil. He maintained a strong anti-Nazi stance and sheltered a Jewish person during the Nazi occupation of France.
Bunin's most famous works—"Solnechny Udar" ("A Sunstroke," 1927), "Zhizn Arsenyeva" ("The Life of Arsenyev," 1933), "Lika" (1939), and "Tyomnye Allei" ("Dark Alleys," also translated as "Shadowed Paths," 1943)—are considered among the greatest achievements in 20th-century Russian literature. His poetry was highly praised by Vladimir Nabokov. However, Soviet censorship banned most of his works due to their candid and harrowing portrayal of the chaos following the 1917 revolution. Each year on November 8, Bunin was haunted by painful memories of Russia's collapse caused by the communist takeover on that date in 1917. He died of a heart attack on the morning of November 8, 1953, in his Paris apartment and was buried at the Russian Cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, near Paris.
Selected works by Bunin were published posthumously in Russia in 1956 and 1961 during the Khrushchev-era "Thaw." However, his eyewitness account of the revolution, "Okayannye dni" ("The Accursed Days"), remained unpublished in Russia until after the fall of the Soviet Union.
