The National and the Universal in the Work of the First Russian Nobel Prize Winner in Literature The 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Honorary Academician I.A. Bunin

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the classic author of Russian literature, Honorary Academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the Category of Fine Literature, the first Russian Nobel Prize laureate in literature I.A. Bunin (October 10 (22), 1870–November 8, 1953). The parallel of the category of the “national” as the “universal,” open to the world, capable of connecting to someone else’s experience in the creative mind of Pushkin, who had stood at the origins of the great Russian classics, and Bunin, who largely completed this tradition in the 20th century, is considered. The aesthetic dominants of Bunin’s artistic world, his inherent ways of mastering images and themes of world culture, as well as the tragic experience of a person in the postclassical era, are reviewed. The assessments of the writer’s work by the major figures of Western literature (Thomas Mann, Romain Rolland, André Gide, and others) are presented. The circumstances of Bunin’s election as an Academician in 1909 are examined. The expert evaluations of his work by the Nobel Committee, which preceded the awarding of the prize in 1933, are analyzed. Special attention is paid to the significance of these milestones in Bunin’s biography and the main components of his literary reputation.