Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...
-winning
Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
author
Ivan Bunin
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin ( or ; rus, Ива́н Алексе́евич Бу́нин, p=ɪˈvan ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪdʑ ˈbunʲɪn, a=Ivan Alyeksyeyevich Bunin.ru.vorb.oga; – 8 November 1953)Znanie'' (Knowledge)
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
literary almanach in
1904
Events
January
* January 7 – The distress signal ''CQD'' is established, only to be replaced 2 years later by ''SOS''.
* January 8 – The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system.
* ...
, where it was coupled with another short novella, "The Golden Bottom" (Золотое дно), under the common title "Black Earth" (Чернозём). "Dreams" is generally regarded as the turning point in Bunin's literary career, marking the radical turn towards social issues prior to which he had mostly avoided.The Works by I.A.Bunin. Vol.II. Novels and novellas. 1892-1909. Khudozhestvennaya Literatura Publishers. 1965. Commentaries, pp. 516-518.
Background
Bunin was one of the most prolific contributors to the ''Znanie'' publishing house's literary compilations. In all, sixteen books of the series featured his work. Originally, besides several poems, another story was planned for the inclusion into the Book I, called "In Corns" (В хлебах; later re-titled and now known as "The Distant Things", Далёкое). Having failed to finish it in time, in a December 11, 1903, letter Bunin informed
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...
and
Konstantin Pyatnitsky
Konstantin Petrovich Pyatnitsky (; 31 March 1864 – 6 January 1938) was a Russian journalist, publisher and memoirist from the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. Pyatnitsky was a co-founder of the publishing company Znanie (publishing company), Znan ...
: "I send you the story, but it is not the one that's been promised. n Cornsproved to be such a torture to me, it has to be five times as large. What I send you instead is a couple of short sketches, united by the common title and one general feel. One of them you've heard, Aleksey Maksimovich, I've been reading it to you. Should some things need be cut out for censors, please do it, I'm so eager to see this coming through!"
Critical reception
Both the first ''Znanie'' book, and Bunin's contribution to it were widely discussed in the early 1900s Russian press. Aleksander Amfiteatrov (under 'Abbadonna' nom de plume), wrote in newspaper ''Rus'':
In ''
Mir Bozhiy
''Mir Bozhiy'' (God's World, Мир божий) was a Russian monthly magazine published in Saint Petersburg in 1892–1906. It was edited first by Viktor Ostrogorsky (1892–1901), then by Fyodor Batyushkov (1902–1906). In July 1906 ''Mir Bozhi ...
'' magazine critic M. Nevedovsky also wrote favourably of Ivan Bunin's making a turn towards social issues. The story "embraced the huge scope of ussias rural world, being in its approach much wider than his previous works and much more exquisite in form," he argued.
One of the story's harshest critics was
Vladimir Korolenko
Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko (, ; 27 July 1853 – 25 December 1921) was a Russian writer, journalist and humanitarian of Ukrainian origin. His best-known work includes the short novel '' The Blind Musician'' (1886), as well as numerous shor ...
who, writing for ''
Russkoye Bogatstvo
''Russkoye Bogatstvo'' (, Russian Wealth) was a monthly literary and political magazine published in St. Petersburg, Russia, from 1876 to mid-1918. In the early 1890s it served as an organ of the liberal Narodniks. From 1906 it became an organ o ...
'', described it as "a set of lightweight vignettes concerned mostly with pictures of nature, full of emotional laments for things of long forgotten past." Korolenko admitted that Bunin "has caught some smothered whispers about things of the old and things yet to come, of murky grey figures from the third class wagon's twilight," but added – "...its just that he couldn't find enough patience in him to lend his ear to what's been whispered, properly." Much as he respected Korolenko and his opinions, Bunin noted in his diary that the latter "misunderstood the essence of these two stories totally."
The 1953 Bunin commentaries
Not long before his death in 1953, revising the text for the ''Loopy Ears'' collection (published posthumously in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
in 1954), Bunin provided the following commentary: "The 'Dreams' novella was written in the end of 1903 – half a century ago! – and at the time I rather hastily sent it to the first ''Znanie'' book where it was published without me making final edits, which explained numerous flaws in it which now I've sorted out… But still
Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...
in his letter to Amfiteatrov on April 13, 1904, wrote: 'Today I've read Znanie's first compilatiom and in it one brilliant Bunin story. This one is truly superb, some moments in it are unbelievable. I strongly recommend it to your attention'."
Commenting on this, Soviet critic V.Titova pointed out (in the 1965 ''The Works by I.A.Bunin'', Vol. II commentaries) that Checkov's words were slightly misquoted by Bunin, since in the letter to Amfiteatrov he wrote of "the brilliant 'Black Earth' story", not "Dreams" (which was originally only part of it), as the author seemed to imply. It remained unclear, Titova remarked, which "numerous flaws" Bunin was speaking of, since "Dreams" was one of the very few texts he's made all but no changes in through the 1910s and 1920s. Only the meschaninOne of ''meschanstvo'', a Russian term for urban lower middle class. vs. red-haired peasant dialogue in the original version was much more violent, purporting to show, apparently, the depth of class hatred between the two and "the growing sense of independence Russian peasants have got the smell of," according to the critic.