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I.A. Bunin: (in)variants of the memoir image

O.R. Demidova

UDC 821.161.1-94

https://doi.org/10.20339/PhS.4-21.106             

 

Demidova Olga R.,

Doctor of Philosophy, Professor,

Professor of the Philosophy Department

Pushkin Leningrad State University;

Professor of the MARKA International Program

European University in St. Petersburg

e-mail: ord55@mail.ru

 

The paper based on a substantial number of émigré ego-texts (memoirs, diaries, and letters) deals with the invariant paradigm of I.A. Bunin’s image represented in them. Relying on the undertaken analysis, the author argues that the said invariants are structurally organized on two levels based on different criteria. The first level differentiating between the existential and the artistic, presents the invariants “Bunin the man” and “Bunin the writer”, the latter constructed on the juxtaposition of the public and the private, the outer and the inner selves. The second level, actualizing the aesthetic and the artistic, juxtaposes the traditional and the modern, realism and modernism as the criteria of evaluating Bunin’s personality. In the majority of the texts Bunin is associated with the past and gone cultural and literary tradition, the authors of the said texts treating this fact as the cause of Bunin’s personal and artistic tragedy. On the other hand, though, Bunin’s personality and artistic standpoint is regarded by all the authors as incomparable and unique, as well as his role in preserving the tradition in exile.

Кeywords: Russian culture, literature, émigré literature, tradition, memoirs, author, (self)image, (self) representation, (in)variant, artistic, existential, positive, negative.

 

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